Canon made a bold announcement, something in line with the growing trend of job layoffs related to the call on the curb on capital spending. This time, Canon of Japan is said to be laying off around 700 workers from its chip equipment operations, a result of a bleak outlook with the current economic trends.

But the laid off workers won’t go empty handed. Rather they would be transferred to other sections of Canon. Canon does not expect its optical products division, which offers microchip and LCD steppers, to turn profitable until 2012.

Canon spokesman Makoto Sugimoto declined to say how many staff it has in its chip stepper operations but the Nikkei business daily reported that the 700 jobs were roughly equivalent to 30 percent.

(Source) Reuters