East Japan Railway Co., which runs train lines in and around Tokyo and high-speed services to northern Japan, is cutting its rail workforce by about 10% due to declining traffic, a trend that was accelerated by Covid-19 keeping commuters at home.
(Bloomberg) — East Japan Railway Co., which runs train lines in and around Tokyo and high-speed services to northern Japan, is cutting its rail workforce by about 10% due to declining traffic, a trend that was accelerated by Covid-19 keeping commuters at home.
The company, which has 34,000 employees in the rail business, will cut about 4,000 jobs by not replacing all retirees, using driver-only operations with no attendants on trains, and relocating staff to non-rail services, spokesman Tsugunori Kondo said in a phone interview. The timing of the plan hasn’t been set yet, he said.
Demand for rail travel remains below pre-pandemic levels in Japan, where an aging and shrinking population was already dimming the outlook for growth. Revenue from JR East’s transport business last quarter was about 30% below the same period in 2019, according to the Nikkei, which reported the plan for job cuts Thursday.
JR East is shifting away from rail to focus on growth areas such as retail and smart cards, according to Kondo. In 2017, the company laid out a 10-year plan to grow its lifestyle service business.
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