Cutting 205 people — 16% of the workforce — and the president with them (1931)

How to read the number 205

What was cut was payroll, and the losses did not originate there. The substance of the loss was a capital structure that brought in no cash, a Kawasaki works built for ¥5.78 million on borrowed money, and the interest and depreciation piling up on it. The ¥70,000 loss for the year to March 1931, set against sales of ¥6.81 million, most likely looked like a figure that cutting 16% of the workforce would erase. The following year’s loss swelled to ¥120,000 instead. What the numbers show more clearly than anything is how few moves were left to a company running out of cash.

Natori Wasaku’s departure does not fit a single explanation either. The corporate chronology records it as a resignation taking responsibility; Wada Tsunesuke and Inagaki Heitaro both cite a move to the Jiji Shinpo newspaper. The reading that a president recruited for his ability to raise capital was brought down by the shortage of the capital he raised holds together — but no words of his own survive to confirm it. The company’s revival can be followed in the performance figures; on the 205 people cut, the only line those involved left behind was that they never quite managed to forget how painful the retrenchment had been.