Nissan Motor Co plans to cut 10,000 more jobs worldwide, Japanese media reported yesterday, a day before the struggling carmaker was expected to report a record annual loss of about US$5 billion.
Public broadcaster NHK said the decision, in addition to an announcement in November last year that it would slash 9,000 positions, means Nissan is now aiming to reduce its total workforce by approximately 15 percent.
Nissan, whose mooted merger with Honda Motor Co collapsed earlier this year, declined to comment on the reports which also appeared in the Nikkei business daily.
Photo: Reuters
The company — one of the top 10 automakers by unit sales — last month issued a stark profit warning, saying it expects an annual net loss of ￥700 billion to ￥750 billion (US$4.73 billion to US$5.06 billion) for the 2024-2025 financial year.
Its previous worst full-year net loss was ￥684 billion in 1999-2000, during a financial crisis that birthed its rocky partnership with French automaker Renault SA.
The automaker, whose shares have tanked nearly 40 percent over the past year, appointed a new CEO in March.
Nissan this month shelved plans, only recently agreed, to build a US$1 billion battery plant in southern Japan, owing to the tough “business environment.”
An additional headwind is the 25 percent tariff imposed by US President Donald Trump on all imported vehicles into the US.
Of all Japanese major automakers, Nissan is likely to be the most severely impacted, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tatsuo Yoshida said.
Its clientele has historically been more price-sensitive than that of its rivals, he said.
One potential solution for Nissan could be Taiwanese electronics behemoth Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), which assembles iPhones and is expanding into cars.
Foxconn in February said it was open to buying Renault’s stake in Nissan, and this month agreed in principle to develop and supply an electric vehicle model to Mitsubishi Motors Corp, an alliance partner of Renault and Nissan.
External help is “very much needed” for Nissan, which can no longer differentiate itself from its rivals by making internal efforts to save costs alone, Yoshida said.
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