NEC Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya…

If there’s an award to be given for most layoffs handed out by a technology company in a recession, NEC may have just won it. This morning the Japanese electronics giant said it will cut at least 20,000 workers world-wide as it struggles to shore up its business amid the worsening econalypse. (Click on table below to enlarge.)

Most of the cuts will come from NEC’s chip, electronic component and LCD display divisions, with 40 percent being made in Japan and the rest overseas. “We are aiming for 20,000 or more,” NEC President Kaoru Yano told a press conference today. “It is regrettable that we have to announce such a big downgrade. We must cut waste.”

Indeed, it must. NEC’s net losses rose an astonishing 13-fold in the past nine months, rising to 129 billion yen, up from 9.98 billion yen a year earlier.