Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, is planning to slash about 1,000 more jobs, through voluntary redundancy in the next financial year, news reports said Saturday, according to dpa. The company is considering further restructuring to receive taxpayers' money to deal with troubled clean-up operations in areas surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the Kyodo News agency reported, citing unnamed sources. More than 80,000 residents have been forced to leave the region due to radioactive contamination after the nuclear disaster. The plant suffered meltdowns at three of its six reactors after it was hit by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. The new job cuts in the year through March 2015 are expected to be part of an updated business plan that Tokyo Electric will announce in December, Kyodo said. The 1,000 posts to be axed come on top of current plans to cut the firm's workforce by 3,600 to 36,000 by March 2014. The updated plan is expected include a cut in utility rates if the company can reactivate its idled reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station in Niigata prefecture. However, Tokyo Electric has been facing fierce local opposition to the reactivation of some reactors, in part because of the company's poor handling of the Fukushima plant. The company has been battling with leaks of radiation-contaminated water from storage tanks in the complex.
