Sony To Lay Off 2,000 In Camera Plant Closure

Things aren't looking too great over at Sony. Despite being one of the world's largest and most notable consumer electronics companies, Sony's recent years have been tough. There's no Walkman around to keep the funds flowing like yesteryear, and the competition is tougher than ever. The company announced some while back that it would be forced to lay a fair amount of workers off in order to keep its budget in tact, and now we're learning more about the specifics. The company this week announced "additional steps it is taking to accelerate structural reforms of its headquarters and electronics business operations in Japan, including consolidating certain manufacturing operations and expediting measures to reduce its headcount." Looking for specifics? Here's a bit straight from Sony:

"As part of its mid-term strategic initiatives announced in April 2012, Sony identified resource optimization as one of the key initiatives for transforming its electronics business and Sony has since been progressively implementing various structural reform measures to optimize costs, streamline its overall organization, accelerate decision-making processes and establish firm foundations for sustainable future growth. In its prior corporate strategy announcement, Sony stated that through the combination of these structural reform measures and business portfolio realignment it expected to reduce headcount across the entire Sony Group, primarily in the electronics business, by approximately 10,000 in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 ("FY12"), including approximately 3,000 to 4,000 in Japan.

Among the measures undertaken to date are integration and consolidation of sales offices and resource optimization in sales and marketing organizations, primarily in Japan, the U.S. and Europe. Within Sony's headquarters and support operations, certain functions have been integrated and organizational structures have been streamlined, while the Company has conducted a thorough review of work content and work-flow process to ensure greater operational efficiency across these operations. Furthermore, on July 1, 2012, Sony established Sony Corporate Services (Japan) Corp., which is working to build a horizontal platform that incorporates support operations from across Sony's consolidated subsidiaries in Japan.

As the proportion of Sony's finished products being produced at its overseas manufacturing sites and by external ODM/OEM vendors continues to increase, Sony has also been taking measures, such as site consolidation, to better reflect the current scale of production, as well as steps to further enhance operational efficiency."

What's strange is that Sony's camera division is one of the few areas where its products truly do leapfrog rivals when looking at bang-for-your-buck. But even still, 2k jobs lost at a camera plant is nothing to scoff at, and we're hoping for brighter days ahead for those impacted.