Credit: ID 124487539 © Jonathan Weiss | Dreamstime
Ricoh is slimming down its local employee ranks after conducting a major review of its workforce, in a move dubbed by at least one source familiar with the matter as a “bloodletting” at the company.
Despite the “bloodletting” claim, the print vendor and IT services provider is downplaying the broader impact of the redundancies it has confirmed it has offered to local employees, suggesting that only “some” people have been affected.
“We have recently conducted a comprehensive review of our workforce structure to provide an effective and efficient organisation for now and into the future,” a spokesperson for the company told ARN in a statement. “These proposed changes will impact some of our people and will result in a streamlined customer-focused workforce.
“After due consideration and past feedback from the field, we have decided to offer voluntary redundancies and are providing a career transition program. This decision has not been taken lightly and we are committed to supporting our people as we work through this process,” the spokesperson said.
While Ricoh claims that only “some” of its people are impacted by the redundancies, the company is remaining silent on precisely how many workers have been affected by the move.
Ricoh has had at least a few waves of redundancies over the past few years, with the company in 2016 cutting an undisclosed number of jobs from its Australian workforce in a move that is understood to have seen several people from its IT services business ranks affected.
More recently, in early 2018, it was reported that the company planned to cut about 4,000 jobs, beginning from fiscal year 2019, to help streamline its then struggling, core office equipment business, according to Reuters, citing a Nikkei report at the time.
