TOKYO -- A mounting toll of job cuts by major Japanese corporations underscores Japan's deepening economic woes and delivers another blow to its weakening lifetime-employment system.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., one of the founders of the lifetime-employment tradition, said it expects to eliminate several thousand jobs by offering payoffs to employees who quit. Another electronics giant, NEC Corp., said it would cut 4,000 jobs globally this year as it reorganizes its chip business.

Daiwa Bank Ltd. said more than 3,000 jobs will be axed over four years as part of its plan to merge with two smaller lenders. Ailing auto maker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said it is moving forward with employee buyouts aimed at trimming 1,200 jobs, or 5% of its work force, and got more takers than it wanted.

The news comes as a stark reminder that Japan's job is rapidly deteriorating, as corporate earnings slide and industrial output shrinks. With the unemployment rate at a record 4.9%, economists and government leaders warn that bigger job losses may be ahead as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pursues painful reforms, such as forcing banks to significantly shrink their huge tally of bad loans.

Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma predicted that the jobless rate could climb above 5% in the next couple of years, because the reforms are expected to drive many of the banks' weakest corporate borrowers into bankruptcy. Peter Morgan, an economist at HSBC Securities (Japan) Ltd., says bankruptcies could drive the unemployment rate up to 6.2% under the likeliest cleanup scenario. That would be a steep rise in misery for a nation that enjoyed a jobless rate of 2.1% in 1990.

The job cuts, particularly those at Matsushita, have shaken the confidence of many Japanese, because the latest job cutters include some of the most faithful practitioners of the practice at blue-chip companies of guaranteeing employees a job for life.

Konosuke Matsushita was an originator of the lifetime-employment system. Now, the company he founded is offering to pay employees as much as 40 months' salary to quit the firm. Matsushita has had an early retirement program since 1996, but it was open only to managers between 50 and 58 years old. The new program is open to all employees 58 and under, and offers bigger benefits for quitting. Matsushita, which makes Panasonic-brand goods, has been hit by slackening global demand for electronic gear.

Matsushita director Tetsuya Kawakami insists the company isn't encouraging people to quit. The incentives are just a way of smoothing the transition for employees who feel they could use their talents better elsewhere, he says.

Still, Japanese media are treating Matsushita's move as symbolic of lifetime employment's demise. "Matsushita Shock: It Will Cut Workers," the weekly magazine Aera declared in a headline.