Nissan plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs globally, according to Japanese media reports. The move comes as a part of company’s path of turning around its business and indicates tough road ahead with management upheaval.
In May, the company had announced its plan to trim 4,800 jobs from its global workforce of around 139,000. The company is yet to make an official statement regarding this and is expected to comment on it post first-quarter earnings announcement this Thursday.
Nissan spokesman Koji Okuda has told news agency AFP, “We’ve not decided yet what we’ll announce (at the Thursday earnings press conference), and we don’t comment on (media) speculation.”
According to Kyodo news agency, the cuts are likely to hit some factories in South America and other regions where Nissan has low profitability.
The cuts, exceeding 7 percent of Nissan’s workforce, points out the extent of problems faced by Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa along with the company’s struggle with weakened relations with French alliance partner Renault SA after the arrest of their shared former chairman, Carlos Ghosn.
Post Ghosn’s financial misconduct trials, the company was hit by decline in sales in Europe and the US. Its profit had been reported to a near-decade low in the last fiscal and is expected to remain muted for this financial year as well.
It is to note that not just Nissan but other leading carmakers and auto component manufacturers have announced several layoffs in last six months on the account of restructuring, sales decline and EV transition. More than 50,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year with 37,000 layoffs announced in first three months of 2019.
