Today, Ricoh announced that it will shed about 10,000 jobs, according to various sources including The Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal. According to reports, the firm will also consolidate some production facilities, eliminate redundancies in business operations, and withdraw from unprofitable market segments. Last month, Ricoh announced a realignment of its production printing business that entailed some layoffs at InfoPrint Solutions. This new and far more massive round of layoffs, which is expected to take place between now and 2014, is apparently part of Ricoh’s efforts to refocus on more profitable business areas, such as services and software, and to target emerging markets.

Doubtless, the layoffs also stem from the firm’s year-over-year declines in revenue and operating and net income in fiscal 2010. When Ricoh announced its year-end results, it issued a separate announcement showing the difference between its actual results and its forecast, issued in February, and attributed the difference to the impact of the earthquake on its business, which has so far cost Ricoh about $115.6 million. The company has since resumed production at damaged facilities, including producing toner at Tohoku Ricoh, which was one of the last production lines to come back online.

Ricoh had 109,014 employees as of March 31, so this reduction would slash its workforce by 9 percent. The company expects to see restructuring costs of about $738.1 million through March 2013 and believes the move will enable it to increase net revenue to about $29.5 billion and boost operating profit to about $2.6 billion by March 2014. These would mark increases of 23 percent and more than 250 percent from sales and operating profit in fiscal 2010.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Ricoh President Shiro Kondo would not say which countries and business segments will be affected but that no areas of the company are exempt from cuts.