Some operations at the Cardiff Panasonic plant will be retained

The workers at the electronics plant - part of Japanese-owned Matsushita Electric (UK) - will no longer be employed there by the end of 2004.

Panasonic announced in January that it was to transfer TV and set-top box production to the Czech Republic.

The company said the 600 threatened job losses had been whittled down to 480.

Production of TVs and set-top boxes is to stop at the plant at the end of December, said Panasonic spokesman Brendan Gore.

Most of the staff will leave by then, although others would carry on working for a month or two longer.

It is understood around 400 staff will remain, working on research and development, and the assembly of microwave ovens and notebook computers.

Inward investors

When the cuts were first proposed in January, about 600 jobs were threatened, and that number has been reduced to just under 500 through natural wastage during this year, said Mr Gore.

Panasonic is one of Wales' longest-serving inward investors having arrived here in the late 1960s.

Four years ago Panasonic cut 700 permanent and 600 part-time posts because of a production switch to Eastern Europe, blaming uncertainty over the UK's entry into the euro.