Stefan Mileschin

The rumour mill is churning with whisperings that Panasonic could be the latest company to begin whipping out those pink slips.

According to sources, the company could be gearing up to slash more jobs on top of the 17,000 recent axes it's already made as it looks to move towards a profit rebound.

However, unlike the previous lot of job losses, which were focused in-house, the source has told Reuters that this time the company will take a blunter axe and shift workers to other units, subsidiaries or affiliates, rather than cut them out of the business completely. He warned the company would aim to halve its 7,000 head office workers.

Panasonic, like many other companies, this year reported a loss within its business. In March the company said it had made a $9.7 billion (772 billion yen) net loss for the year ended March 31.

And it seems redundancies are becoming a way to fix these. Last month Sony announced it would be wiping 10,000 people from its payroll books, while Dell and HP have also been waving the axe.

The company may also consider spinning off R&D and production technology functions in a bid to get back on track.

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