Exclusive: Canon slashes Aussie jobs

Local workers booted in restructure.

Printing and imaging behemoth Canon has slashed jobs throughout the Asia Pacific region following a restructure of its business, making 10 percent of its Oceanic workforce redundant. 

Support workers in the company’s Sydney head office were the hardest hit, with sources revealing to CRN that a total of 88 workers were let go following an internal evaluation last year.

Administration and middle management were also affected, sources told CRN. 

Canon declined to comment on specifics of the restructure but said where relevant, it had re-allocated workers to other areas of the business, including sales and support.

“It’s been a combination of redundancies and new hires. We continually evaluate our operations to optimise them for the benefit of our customers,” a spokesperson said.

“When there are restructures, there are some people who do leave the business, but we always make a great effort to try to retain as many as we can.”

The spokesperson said the regional restructure was unrelated to Canon's acquisition of Dutch print company Océ, which has been in the works since 2009.

“Océ Australia is an accredited reseller of Canon Australia. We service some of the Canon equipment they sell and vice versa; the same as with other business partners,” the spokesperson said.

“Our approach with Océ locally has been, and continues to be, to work together in areas where there are opportunities to do so." 

Canon posted disappointing global sales results for the 2011 financial year, blaming floods in Thailand for a 4 percent, $A2.2 billion drop since 2010 to $A43 billion. Operating profit was also down 2.4 percent, from $A4.6 billion in 2010 to $A4.5 billion last year.  

The company forecast that global sales would bounce back to $A45 billion for the financial year ended March 31 2013, thanks to a strong start in 2012.