HONG KONG  Panasonic said on Wednesday that it was shedding 15,000 jobs, the second significant layoff in Japan’s electronics industry in less than a week. It was the latest example of how Japanese companies, exporters in particular, were scrambling to cut costs as demand evaporates.

Panasonic, along with Mitsubishi Motors and Mazda, also joined the rapidly lengthening list of companies to sharply revise their full-year outlooks Wednesday, with Panasonic now projecting a net loss of 380 billion yen or $4.2 billion for the year ending March 31, rather than the 30 billion yen profit it forecast on Nov. 27. Mitsubishi expects a net loss of 60 billion yen and Mazda 13 billion.

The speed of the demand downturn in recent months has taken manufacturers and economists by surprise, and forced many companies to sharply lower profit warnings made only months or even weeks ago.

As concern mounts that no tangible improvement will come until late in 2009 at the earliest, companies have intensified their cost cuts: large-scale layoffs like the ones announced by Panasonic on Wednesday and by the computer maker NEC last Friday are likely to become increasingly common. NEC is cutting 20,000 jobs. Hitachi, Toshiba and Sony have all also recently announced thousands of job cuts.