TOYOTA Motor Corp, which surpassed General Motors Corp as the No. 1 auto maker by vehicles sold in the first half of this year, has narrowed Volkswagen AG's lead as the industry's largest employer, Bloomberg News data showed yesterday.

Toyota had 316,121 staff at the end of its fiscal year on March 31, a 5.6-percent increase from a year earlier, the data showed. VW had 332,063 workers on the same date, a 2.4-percent increase, according to its first-quarter quarterly financial statement. Excluding apprentices and people "in the passive phase of their early retirement," Volkswagen had 314,888 "active" employees, the report said.

The data showed the number of staff at VW, Toyota, Daimler AG, General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co since the end of 2004. Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen became the largest employer in 2007 after Daimler sold its Chrysler unit to Cerberus Capital Management LP.

Toyota reports employee data twice a year, the German auto makers quarterly, and United States companies annually.

Production cuts in the US for Tundra large pickups and Sequoia SUVs would not prompt layoffs of full-time staff, a Toyota spokeswoman said. "There is no plan for employment reductions," the spokeswoman, Kayo Doi, said. Some staff would attend training programs during the "non-production" period, she said, adding that Toyota in December opened its first factory in Russia and was scheduled to open another in Ontario, Canada this year.

Toyota sold 4.82 million vehicles in the first half, according to preliminary figures, while GM reported sales of 4.54 million. The Detroit-based auto maker was the largest employer in the industry until 1998, the data showed. GM had 266,000 staff at December 31, a decline of 5 percent from a year earlier and 20.6 percent fewer than at the end of 2005.

Volkswagen passed Ford to become No. 3 by vehicles sold in the first half, spurred by growth in China, India, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine. It employed 336,415 people at June 30, of which 319,526 were "active," according to a quarterly report last month.