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Sharp's early retirement program becomes oversubscribed

Sharp's early retirement program proves popular as many of Sharp's staff abandon a sinking ship.
Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer

Sharp's earlier retirement program aimed to let go 2,000 Japanese staff, and yet 3,000 have taken the firm up on its offer.

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The electronics giant has been in financial trouble for some time now. Knowing this, what member of staff -- who potentially is at an age that gaining another job easily would be difficult -- wouldn't take the opportunity to leave the ailing firm and be financially compensated?

The voluntary retirement program, announced in August, would give staff at the firm and its main subsidies in Japan the option to stop work voluntarily. Sharp's original estimates suggested that roughly 2,000 employees would be induced to take voluntary retirement.

However, the company has had to shorten the application deadline by a week as the scheme quickly became oversubscribed. In total, 2,960 Sharp employees have taken the deal, each of whom will retire on December 15 2012.

The expense, 25.3 billion yen ($3.11bn) will be recorded as an extraordinary loss for the third quarter ending March 31 2013.

Reports suggest that the consumer electronics firm is in talks with Qualcomm and Intel in order to receive a joint investment worth $378 million dollars. The firm has doubled its full-year net loss forecast to $5.7 billion, and says that it has "serious doubts" about survival. 

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