Fujitsu plans 1,800 UK job cuts

“Fujitsu’s main UK subsidiary made £85.6 million ($104 million, 94 million euros) profit last year and we see no reason for these job losses,” said the union’s national IT officer.

So, work hard, make a profit and get the sack. I wonder how many Japanese Fujitsu staff work hard, make a profit and then get the sack.

This is just the beginning of Japan giving UK a bloody nose over Brexit. Many more job cuts coming from other J companies I am certain.

Well, what do we expect? We give corporations the right to move capital around as they see fit. But the right of labour to move is severely restricted. In fact, moving labour was the main reason the majority voted for Brexit. So Britain is widening the disparity between capital and labour freedom. But, if you were a corporation looking to divest yourself of costs then no-hope Britain would be a good place to consider.

Probably, Fujitsu was looking at restructuring anyway, but given the uncertainty in the UK, and the likely loss of favorable market access to the EU, if there are a number of sites where cuts can be made, the UK seems a good place to start, since in the advent of a chaotic Brexit, some of those jobs would have been moved anyway...so why not get ahead of the ball.

Also, as Moonraker says, there is a serious underappreciation of the freedom of labour movement (I add the word 'labour' because the fact is that the freedom of movement is, in fact, constrained - after 6 months an EU citizen living outside his/her home country can be asked to show that they are in employment or that they have the funds to support themselves or they can be made to leave). It levels the playing field because while companies can move around, so can workers, making it harder for companies to blackmail governments (which government wants to advertise that its policies are increasing unemployment?)

This is just the beginning

People on this forum need to take remedial reading lessons. This story quotes officials saying this is NOT about Brexit. Your comments are example of the Remain camp's "issues" with the facts and stubborn bone-headedness.

Indeed, Fujitsu has been in deep doo-doo lately, and is so desperate it wants Lenovo to take over its entire PC operations.

Well, Japan warned the UK of the consequences and they were right.

People who attribute everything negative to Brexit strangely don't do the same when there's good news. Exports are up and consumer confidence is the highest its ever been.....we haven't left the EU yet. It's raining......That's because of Brexit.

First, the PC market has been in serious decline for the last 5 years, so PC makers are all in trouble (or PC components makers). Hence AMD/ATI's troubles.

Intel has been a bit better because it has so much money and controls most of the shrinking PC market (although, to be fair, it is starting to stabilize - industrial PCs are still a solid market - it is the consumer market that has taken a big hit).

Having said this, from what I read, it sounds like Fujitsu is in the services sector, providing IT services. Therefore, while it is quite likely that this is simply a restructuring that was in the cards (although even if it were Brexit related - very few companies would actually say it for fear of irritating a part of their potential market), the fact that the UK is likely to be out of the common market in the next couple of years makes the UK more vulnerable for job cuts/investment cuts - which will eventually often translate to job cuts - when companies feel they need to restructure.

After all, you would rather cut something that may have to be eventually restructured anyway if the market in which you operate is about to significantly change rather than in a place that is likely to be stable (when such a choice is in the cards).

Tangerine2000: Exports are up just because Brexit sent the pound to its lowest levels in decades. Is that really meant to be a good thing?

Seeing as it's looking more and more likely that Britain is going for the "hard exit" with no free movement of labour, I doubt the labour talent would exist in Britain anymore after the eventual exit so good pre-emptive move by Fujitsu. I suspect they will move a lot of these operations to France

@DiscoJ

Yes it really is. The Pound has been overvalued for a long time. That is actually worse for an country's economy. Having a much cheaper Pound will make the UK a much more competitive country. This will lead to an increase in demand and create more jobs.

@Alfie

I wonder how many Japanese Fujitsu staff work hard, make a profit and then get the sack.

"Zero" is your answer. Japanese staff don't get the sack for poor performance, much less good performance.

@Tangerine2000

While it is true that a cheaper pound makes a country's exports more affordable, one of the problems the UK has is that it actually does not produce that much that can be exported (well, financial services, if you will, but with free trade agreements generally not including services, that is not going to happen). A manufacturing infrastructure needs to first be built up...something which, once article 50 is invoked, is a bit late in the day to do. So there is a limited positive side to the depreciated pound....And there are non-tariff barriers (customs inspections, paperwork for clearing customs - so more 'red tape').

In the meanwhile, since the UK imports more than it exports, a devalued pound actually makes people poorer, so their purchasing power goes down. So demand (domestically, anyway) will not improve.

Nothing to do with Brexit. The IT services sector has been shrinking for years. This is due to many factors. Cloud – which is distributed so the support can be anywhere. Reduction in Government contract spend on IT due to the poor return on investment for taxpayers after many botched IT projects, among them Universal Credit, Border Control, NHS patient records management etc; Off shoring of jobs, HP call it best shoring, some call it follow the sun support but it is amazing how the off shore locations also happen to be low wage economies. Fujitsu themselves have lost a lot of revenue from their Inland Revenue contract since HRMC told both them and Cap Gemini to sharpen their pencils.

it now clear why fuujetsu wants to sell itself to lenobo

Well, as said above, PC makers and suppliers are not doing well due to smartphones replacing them. Fujitsu, however, did not cut jobs - yet - in other countries. Brexit supporters are starting to get what they asked for.

@Lost-in-Nagoya.

It is just that if you have to cut jobs, you cut where they will, in the long run, cause the least damage. Given that with what appears to be a hard brexit on its way, something that would render European business more complicated if conducted from the UK, that would be a good place to start.

However, I am not going to blame Brexit yet. In fact, the irony is that because Brexit is more like a slow moving car crash, it will often not be clear (even if it is suspected) that restructuring is directly related to Brexit. It would only be seen on a large scale, if enough companies do it, over a protracted enough period, such as a large enough change in GDP over a sustained period of time.

That does not mean I do not think that Brexit will not hurt the UK. Ninety percent of economists agreed that it will cause serious damage to the UK economy, and unlike Michael Gove, I do believe in experts (otherwise, why do we pay doctors so much money and expect them to go to school for so many years). However, as with climate change, you cannot take a single event and point to it as evidence. it is a change in pattern that provides the evidence.