TOKYO - Sony, which is slashing jobs in a painful restructuring drive, said yesterday it will nearly double hiring of fresh graduates as it tries to restore its competitive edge in electronics.

The iconic Japanese company, which has weathered tough competition both at home and abroad, will hire 400 graduates, including 320 engineers, in spring 2007, up from a total of 230 graduates to be taken aboard this year.

The electronics giant will also hire 350 mid-career workers, up from 200 hired during the current financial year, a Sony spokeswoman said.

"As our company is determined to strengthen its electronics business, we are aiming to get brilliant young people in their late 20s and early 30s," she said.

Amid criticism that the Walkman inventor has been slow to catch on to new concepts such as Apple's iPod phenomenon, Sony last year put in the driver's seat Howard Stringer, a Welsh-born former television journalist.

Stringer, Sony's first foreign boss, in September announced a major overhaul including 10,000 job cuts by March 2008.

The company posted a record profit for the three months to December in a sign of a possible turnaround.

Sony has said its restructuring program is on schedule, confirming that it will cut 4,500 employees and close down seven plants by the end of March. But these cuts did not target engineers, the spokeswoman said.

Sony said earlier this week it will abolish its system under which retired executives automatically become "corporate advisors" who enjoy salaries to the tune of 10 million yen ($85,000) a year.

The program will end in March when all 45 corporate advisors, including former Sony president Kunitake Ando, resign.

"We decided that the advisor system can be replaced by other resources inside and outside the company," Sony said in a statement.*AFP

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