Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503), the utility that supplies Japan’s second-biggest metropolitan area, plans to cut about 500 jobs in the three years ending March 2016 to reduce costs.

The plan was revealed at a meeting yesterday with the government panel reviewing the utility’s request to raise prices. The job cuts will help increase sales per employee by 24 percent by the end of the period compared with the year ended March 2000, according to the plan posted on the trade and industry ministry’s website.

The utility, which had a record first-half loss of 117 billion yen ($1.4 billion), submitted the request last month to raise rates for households by 11.88 percent to cover the increased costs of running its thermal power plants.

Kansai Electric is operating just two of its 11 nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster last year prompted shutdowns of nuclear plants and forced utilities to raise imports of fuel for gas, oil and coal-fired generators.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net