NTT to cut workforce by 30,000

TOKYO (Reuter) - Japan's domestic telecommunications giant, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, has said it will reduce its workforce by 30,000 by 1996. It hopes more employees will take early retirement.

Masashi Kojima, president, also said NTT would close 400 of its 1,300 sales outlets.

An NTT spokesman said this week that the company had already cut its workforce by nearly 100,000 to the current 230,000 since it was privatised in 1985.

Mamoru Ozaki, the vice-finance minister, when asked about NTT's plan to cut jobs, said that the move was not directly caused by the sluggish economy or a strong yen.

Such corporate restructuring was unlikely to damage consumer confidence in the long term as companies believed such steps should help support profits in the not too distant future, Mr Ozaki added.