Toyota Motor Corp, which surpassed General Motors Corp as the No 1 automaker by vehicles sold in the first half of this year, has narrowed Volkswagen AG's lead as the industry's largest employer, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

  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 show. VW had 332,063 workers on the same date, a 2.4 percent increase, according to its first-quarter quarterly financial state-ment. Excluding apprentices and people "in the passive phase of their early retirement", Volkswagen had 314,888 "active" employees, the report said.

  Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen became the largest employer in 2007, the Bloomberg data shows, after Daimler sold its Chrysler unit to Cerberus Capital Management LP.

  Toyota reports employee data twice a year, the German automakers quarterly and US companies annually.

   A Toyota spokeswoman wouldn't comment on staff projections for this year. Production cuts in the US for Tundra large pickups and Sequoia SUVs won't prompt layoffs of full-time staff, she said.

   "There is no plan for employment reductions," the spokeswoman, Kayo Doi, said by phone from Toyota City, Japan on Aug 1. Some staff will attend training programs during the "non-production" period, she said, adding that Toyota in December opened its first factory in Russia and is 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 automaker was the largest employer in the industry until 1998, the data show. GM had 266,000 staff at Dec 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.

   Hans-Ruediger Dehning, a spokesman for Volkswagen, said in an e-mail response to questions that a companywide forecast was not available.

  He did say that Volkswagen's 500 million-euro factory southwest of Moscow, which opened in November, will have 1,000 staff by year-end and about 3,000 "under full operation" in 2010.

  VW is building a 410 million-euro plant in India that's scheduled to start production next year and plans another in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with a targeted opening in 2011.