One of Japan’s oldest electronics appliance makers, NEC, is the first Japanese company to announce huge cuts for Union workers AND executives!
Union labor is asked to take a 4% pay cut, on top of 10,000 workers being laid off! But, wait there’s more! Managers will also get hit with a 4% cut in pay. And executives were told their bonuses will be 40% less!
NEC officials say the company has lost about $1.2 billion, for their business end of year (which is in March)! They blame natural disasters and the increasing value of the Japanese yen (which is actually caused by the declining value of the U.S. dollar).
Even when turned ‘off’, most of your electronic appliances are still on. That’s because most appliances now contain tiny computers to remember settings, to run clocks, to sense your remote, etc.
Actually when you turn your electronics ‘off’ you’ve actually put them in a ‘standby mode’. This standby mode accounts for about 6 percent of household electricity use.
NEC and Tohoku University have developed a semiconductor to cut that standby power usage to zero. They say it uses a magnet, instead of electricity, to operate in standby mode. Unfortunately it will be a few more years before it hits the market, but they hope it will cut overall electricity usage by 25%.
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