Fujitsu is to put into play a staff rationalisation programme that will see as many as 1200 jobs or about 10% of the workforce in its UK IT services operation being made redundant by the end of the year.
The measure is being proposed because of lower than anticipated revenues, the services provider said today.
The Fujitsu group as a whole had revenues of around $47 billion for the financial year to March with the UK said to be responsible for an annual revenue of £2 billion from sales of IT systems, services and products.
IT services watcher Richard Holway of TechMarketView has suggested that the business is forecasting a 7% decline in Fujitsu’s UK revenues.
The company said it has already taken a number of prudent measures to keep its cost base down and avoid job losses, including “a company wide pay freeze, a reduction in the number of contractors and temporary workers, a re-training programme and tight control of recruitment.”
Fujitusu’s workforce is spread across Britain, with its four largest sites being in Stevenage, Manchester, London and Bracknell where it has its headquarters and which, along with the company’s engineering function, looks likely to face the biggest losses.
Fujitsu said it has proposed these measure reluctantly. “However action is necessary to ensure that the company remains competitive in the current difficult global economic climate and is in a solid position for future growth when the economy starts to recover.”
Today’s announcement is not the first and is unlikely to be the last from the IT services sector and follows other cost-cutting initiatives launched in recent months by Fujitsu rivals like IBM, Capgemini and EDS/HP.
