Toyota is hiring 800 contract workers in Japan in its first such job increase in more than a year amid signs of a global recovery led by brisk sales of its Prius hybrid, the world’s No. 1 automaker said yesterday.
Most will start working next month at Toyota Motor Corp’s Tsutsumi plant, central Japan, which makes the Prius and other models for the Japanese market.
Toyota now employs 1,300 contract workers in Japan, down from the peak of 11,600 employed in June 2005 when auto sales were booming.
Such workers are hired for limited periods unlike the 70,000 full-time workers in Japan, who are guaranteed “lifetime employment.”
Toyota reduced its contract workers amid the global slump in auto sales by not renewing their contracts or promoting them to full-time.
The Japanese automaker employs more than 300,000 workers worldwide.
Toyota has been struggling since global sales plunged last year.
It stopped hiring contract workers in Japan in June last year.
The maker of the Lexus luxury model and Camry sedan racked up its worst loss ever of ¥436.9 billion (US$4.6 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31.
It has projected an even worse fiscal year through March next year, although analysts are expecting that to be revised to a better forecast now there are signs sales may be picking up.
Toyota has been reducing workers in other nations to cut costs.
Last month, Toyota said it is shutting the California factory it ran with General Motors for 25 years — the first time it was closing a major auto assembly plant ever.
The Fremont, California-based New United Motor Manufacturing Inc, which employs about 4,600 workers, is set to be closed in March next year, unless another company steps in to keep it going. Toyota said it will move production to its other plants in the US, Canada and Japan.
Toyota said the latest hiring will replace the overtime workers in Japan have had to do to keep up with demand. Recruitment will favor former employees, it said in a statement.
“The decision to hire the contract employees reflects gradually recovering global auto sales,” company spokesman Paul Nolasco said.
“We want to be prepared,” he said.
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
RSS