Shares in the Japanese office equipment giant rose at the end of last week on the news.

The cuts program, which will prune back almost 10% of the workforce, will take place over the next three years to March 2014 and is expected to cost the company 60bn yen ($693m).

Ricoh has seen sales dip over the past few years, hobbled by the strong yen as well as, more recently, difficulties following the huge earthquake that struck Japan in March. The move is intended to improve its operating profit margin to 8.8% which had dropped to 3.3% last year.

Ricoh Australia managing director Les Richardson said that the local operation was performing strongly.

“Ricoh Australia is enjoying steady growth, with strong performance supplemented by recent acquisitions and an expansion into new markets such as IT services.

“We always look for efficiencies in our operations, in line with Ricoh’s global strategy. At present, however, we are actively recruiting for positions to support our continued growth and success,” he added.

The earthquake and tsunami that devastated the north eastern coast of Japan has left businesses reeling, with Ricoh expecting it to cost 9.4bn yen.

Ricoh stock was trading at 888 yen on the Tokyo stock exchange on Friday, having closed up more than 4% on the news.

Ricoh’s latest release is the Pro C901 digital production press, which was one of the highlights of PrintEx11, where it was producing the PrintEx Daily in partnership with ProPrint.

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