Japan’s Renesas Electronics to slash jobs amid weak chip demand, Nikkei reports

(Reuters) – Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics will cut several hundred of jobs in 2025 due to sluggish demand for a wide range of its chips, Nikkei reported on Wednesday.

The company informed employees of its plans to eliminate less than 5% of its roughly 21,000-strong workforce in Japan and abroad, Nikkei’s report said.

Renesas also announced that regular salary increases, which were scheduled for this spring, have been postponed, the report added.

The report said Renesas’ manufacturing utilization decreased from over 40% in the July-September quarter to about 30% in the October-December quarter due to weak demand.

A semiconductor distributor in Japan said “the market will not recover until at least the second half of 2025,” according to Nikkei’s report.

Renesas did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

(Reporting by Adwitiya Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Shreya Biswas)