Japan Tobacco to cut 1,600 jobs as cigarette sales fall

How dreadful - sales are down. That's too bad.

Good. Keep withering Japan Tobacco.

yes yes keep falling

Only 21%? I had figured it was a lot higher than that... I just checked... Australian figures, while also dropping every year, are actually about the same as Japan in 2012... Yet i never get bothered by it when i am in Australia, like i do here in Japan.

Can only put that down to the locations that smokers here tend to do it. Its in restaurants, pubs, bars, hotel rooms, rentacars, enclosed spaces that i end up having to put up with. Its no coincidence that smoking hotel rooms & rentacars are ALWAYS left unbooked until last. Lets hope the hospitality/transport industry is also keeping an eye on these trends and adjusting the numbers to match...

Good to hear tobacco sales are falling. Who wants to smell that disgusting crap. KEEP FALLING!

Doesn't matter to me, I buy American cigarettes (blows smoke in faces of above posters)

Good news. I hope they provide full assistance for the staff to find work.

Sorry for the staff but GREAT NEWS. How about banning indoor smoking? That would be O MO TE NA SHI for the Olympics. If Hong Kong can do it - Tokyo can.

Anti-smoking laws here are so archaic, which can be put down to JTs politically reach. Personally, I'd like to see smoking banned at all indoor venues, but know full we'll that this is still a LONG way off.

Cut the tobacco!!!!!! Not the jobs!

Hope all the non smokers fired first

I can't wait until we are all just told what to do, what to eat , what to wear ,where to work , its going to make life so much less confusing, i mean who needs choice , I hope my kids are the ones that are chosen for the good jobs , with the nice houses though.

Unfortunately, JT is not the only company which will be shedding workers and closing factories. I strongly dislike smoking, and more than once it has annoyed me enough that I accost people blatantly smoking in clearly-defined nonsmoking areas and tell them to put their cgarettes out. But if they want to smoke where they are allowed, that's quite fine with me.

The government has striven to reduce smoking through increased taxes on cigarettes, and this has been a strong reason the number of smokers has decreased. Increase the price of a product, and less people will buy that product. Another reason is that the numbet of people being born is also decreasing, limiting the number of future smokers to an ever-decreasing amount.

Unfortunately, what is happening to JT will also happen to other companies. The increase in the consumption tax is going to refuce sales just as the existing tax on cigarettes has, and the decreasing population will further refuce sales.

What is happening to JT will soon be all-too-common news in all Japanese industries.

I buy American cigarettes (blows smoke in faces of above posters)

eventually, you won't be able to do that

Alex Einz, pass me a cigarette so we can get their jobs back.

Must be psychologically difficult working in JT's publicity department trying to promote cigarette smoking as it usually involves enticing young non-smokers to become addicted to the nicotine habit. Maybe JT will try to increase the talented staff in that department with some special incentives (you know, like the devil did with Faust).

Good for the country's health. Bad for a corrupt organization that has thrived for too long under government protection.

The increase in the consumption tax is going to refuce sales just as the existing tax on cigarettes has

What are you smoking? Back when I came to Japan a pack of cigs was 250 yen. Now they are 440 yen, almost double. Are you seriously comparing an increase of 80% with that of 3%?

Good thing that smoking is falling though of course it's sad for the workers. But I don't get the fanatism of some non-smokers. There are so many evil industries to tackle ... from food processing via the lovely TEPCO to other polluting industries ... Smoking kills but a lot of other things do too in industrialised societies.

Die Japan Tobacco! DIE like the cancer patients you create!

With 21% of the population smoking, rather than an across-the-board sales tax increase of 3%, why not just hit the smokers with a much higher sales tax? It's an item that's not necessary, unlike fruits and vegetables, which shouldn't be taxed, and there are high associated health costs, which we all have to pay for. Also put higher taxes on other avoidable and luxury items.

I personally think what really started the trend of lower smoking in Japan was the ban of smoking on airline flights in recent years and especially the ban on smoking on longer-distance trains (except for a very small designated area on some Shinkansen trains) since March 2007. I wouldn't be surprised that by 2020 smoking will be banned in restaurants and bars, too.

With increasing bans on smoking, no wonder why Japan Tobacco sales have fallen in recent years, hence the reduction in the number of employees at the company.

More and more people are sying NO! good.

We don't like to think about it, but at some time, everybody dies.

It's never a pleasant experience, of course.

But death from lung cancer has to be one of the more horrible ways to go.

Not every smoker gets it.

But there are those who do.

And, let us not forget that non-smokers who breathe in other people's tobacco fumes occasionally get it.

I used to smoke, so I know both sides.

If I'm honest about it, two or three cigarettes a day were pleasant. The rest were smoked out of habit.

For the small amount of pleasure gained, it's hardly worth the risk.

Good. Smoking killed my grandmother and great-grandmother. I pray that JT and all tobacco companies go bankrupt.

I can't wait until we are all just told what to do, what to eat , what to wear ,where to work , its going to make life so much less confusing, i mean who needs choice , I hope my kids are the ones that are chosen for the good jobs , with the nice houses though.

Can you make the choice to stop smoking . . . didnt think so. So do not lecture on choice when you yourself do not have any regarding smoking. You are a hopeless addict.

So 1600 laid off, that is the number of people who die daily in Japan due to smoking.

all4fajOct. 31, 2013 - 10:51AM JST

I can't wait until we are all just told what to do, what to eat , what to wear ,where to work , its going to make life so much less confusing, i mean who needs choice , I hope my kids are the ones that are chosen for the good jobs , with the nice houses though.

You are helplessly addicted. I used to smoke one pack a day over 40 years, and one day, I dropped a whole pack and called a quit. It was not easy but I am glad I did. Now I cannot stand a smell of it. I think smokers are seen as individuals with weak minds. You may laugh but I once hired a man who confessed to me, during an interview, that his biggest successful story in life was to quit smoking. As I knew this guy had a strong mind to accomplish what he wanted to do, and I tell you that he never disappointed me. Good luck to you. Hope you can quit.

No matter what the industry, it's always sad when people get laid off. People need work to live.