New York, January 26 (FinanceEnquiry.com) - A slump in demand for its mobile phones, computers and wireless gear due to the sluggish global growth has led NEC Corp. to slash 10,000 jobs as it forecast its third annual loss in four years. In its forecast, NEC (NIPNF).PK) expects a 100 billion-yen ($1.3 billion) loss for the year ending March 31 against its earlier expectation of a profit of 15 billion yen. The company’s planned job cuts constitute about 8.6 percent of its workforce.

NEC plans to cut 7,000 of those jobs in Japan and a 40 billion-yen charge will be taken by the company for the restructuring. NEC has also announced that it will not pay a year-end dividend. Analysts feel that although the job cuts are higher than expected, the company will be able to reduce expenses and some improvements will be noticed from next fiscal year.

As of 3 p.m. close of trading in Tokyo, the shares of the computer maker were unchanged at 168 yen, before release of the job-cuts statement. In the past 12 months, NEC has dropped 31 percent in market value. The majority of the job cuts may begin from March 31 and will come from the company’s mobile-phone handset business. Both part-time and full-time jobs will be affected by the job cuts.