"Telework Activation" Hitachi Japan to Reduce Office Space by 20%

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Japanese electronics company Hitachi, Ltd., which is accelerating the activation of telework (remote work), has decided to reduce office space in the metropolitan area by 20% by the year after next.

According to NHK on the 20th, Hitachi made this decision based on the expectation that the commuting rate of employees working at headquarters and other locations will remain at around 50% even after the end of COVID-19 due to the establishment of telework. They plan to consolidate about 40 base offices currently located in the metropolitan area and reduce office space.

Hitachi has been accelerating the spread of telework. To this end, they are enhancing IT infrastructure by expanding the number of people who can access the company system from home or elsewhere at once to 120,000, which is four times the pre-COVID-19 level.

NHK reported that with the spread of telework causing communication shortages among employees, the company plans to expand office spaces for interaction and individual booths for online meetings.

Meanwhile, in Japan, other companies besides Hitachi are also showing movements to reduce office space triggered by COVID-19. Japanese IT company Fujitsu has decided to reduce office space to half of the previous size, and NTT East Japan withdrew from a large office space of over 180,000 square meters in Tokyo this March.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.