Japan's NEC to lose 20,000 jobs

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Japanese electronics giant NEC has announced that it will be cutting 20,000 jobs worldwide by March 2010.

The company also made a loss of 130.8bn yen ($1.45bn) in the final quarter of 2008 and forecast a loss for the full financial year.

Half the cuts will be from full-time workers and half from temporary and contract staff, boss Kaoru Yano said.

Also on Friday, rival Hitachi announced that it was cutting up to 7,000 jobs and forecast a full year loss.

The full impact of the economic downturn in the final three months of 2008 has hit NEC - the personal computer and electronic chip maker - hard.

Losses for the nine months to the end of December totalled 129bn yen.

"With these measures we will seek to improve our fixed costs in order to convert to a more muscular profit structure," said Mr Yano.

The Tokyo-based company currently employs more than 150,000 people.