Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to slash jobs to raise funds needed to compensate victims of the crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, officials said.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to slash jobs to raise funds needed to compensate victims of the crisis at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, officials said.
TEPCO, which currently has about 52,000 employees, including those in group companies, said the scale of reduction will be decided by year-end on the premise that numbers can be maintained to deal with the accident and handle clerical work for compensation.
In May, TEPCO said it would slash personnel costs by about 54 billion yen ($675 million) a year mainly by cutting employee salaries by 20 percent and forcing executives to return remuneration payments.
On June 24, TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata revealed the worker-reduction plan for the first time during questioning by an investigative committee on the utility's management and financial affairs.
Some committee members have demanded that TEPCO also review benefit payments from its private corporate pension program.
"Benefits from the pension program are protected by law," Katsumata told reporters after the meeting. "But we want to sufficiently consider the committee's opinions, such as those on the rate of returns."
Although the third-party committee was set up after the nuclear accidents to monitor the operations of TEPCO, some reporters questioned its impartiality.
The head of the secretariat for the investigative committee is an official from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry which supervises the electric power industry.
Kazuhiko Shimokobe, a lawyer who chairs the committee, suggested that certain measures are needed to heighten the neutrality of the secretariat.
"The people could have anxieties," he said. "We want to make efforts to dispel such anxieties."
(This story was written by Toru Nakagawa and Naoyuki Fukuda.)