Another major Japanese company has fallen victim to the worldwide slump in semiconductor prices. NEC, which is the biggest semiconductor manufacturer in Japan, said that it will make a loss of 20 billion yen. It will lay off 6,000 people worldwide and there are certain to be job losses at its plants in Scotland and Ireland. Unlike other Japanese semiconductor companies, NEC had taken no previous action to restructure its activities. Now it will be forced to. In the same period last year, NEC turned in a profit of 35.7 billion yen. NEC said that the 6,000 jobs will be lost through a combination of natural wastage and not recruiting staff to replace them. ®