Tape and floppy disk maker TDK Corp has started to think what was once unthinkable for a large Japanese company: it is considering putting about 50 employees on home standby to cut down on overmanning, Reuter reports from Tokyo: the company denied a report in the Japanese business daily Nippon Keizai Shimbun that TDK had actually decided on such a plan, but it said it was considering laying off workers in their 50s while keeping them on 90% pay; the newspaper said the plan would save the company only several million yen a month in travel and other expenses, but it quoted TDK as saying that it needed to impose on its employees a severer attitude towards their work.
