Japanese automaker Nissan said on Friday it had suspended a plan to cut 1,680 jobs at a Spanish plant and will instead implement a temporary work reduction program.
It said the company reached a deal with unions to immediately implement a “temporary labor force adjustment” plan until March 31 that will affect 3,300 employees at its factory in the northeastern city of Barcelona.
It said in a statement that: “This temporary measure is not intended in any way to replace Nissan’s aim of changing its structure to ensure its competitiveness at the factory [in Barcelona] in 2010.”
Nissan had planned to cut 1,288 jobs this year and a further 392 next year in Barcelona.
In announcing the plan in October, the company blamed “the global economic crisis that has caused a dramatic decline in industrial output.”
Nissan said on Friday that negotiations would take place between unions and management during the period of the work reduction plan.
A spokesman for the Workers Committees union, Agustin Perez, said that unions would present “an industrial plan offering voluntary departures and early retirements for the maximum number of employees.”
The union said it would try to avoid any forced layoffs, “as we are aware that the company will continue to seek staff cuts.”
Nissan, in which France’s Renault holds a controlling stake, is Japan’s third-largest automaker and employs 6,100 people in Spain.
Spain’s auto manufacturing sector in the third biggest in Europe and accounts for just under 10 percent of the country’s economic output and 15 percent of exports.
It has been badly hit by the economic slowdown and many automakers in the country have announced staff cutbacks.
Sales of new automobiles plunged 49.6 percent last month and Spain is now on the brink of recession.
Statistics showed the country’s economy shrank 0.2 percent in the third quarter.
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