Yahoo Finance Coronavirus: Nissan looks at cutting up to 20,000 jobs worldwide
Japanese carmaker Nissan (NSANY) is considering cutting up to 20,000 jobs across its global network, according to Kyodo News. Kyodo said on Friday that Nissan would make the bulk of the job cuts in Europe and developing markets.
The carmaker, which is part of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, has seen sales and profits slump. Kyodo News said that Nissan is expected to announce the extensive job cuts as part of its new mid-term strategy.
Bloomberg reported last week that Nissan is planning to make $2.8bn (£2.3bn) worth of cost cuts overall, as part of a three-year plan to turn the company’s fortunes around.
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Nissan had already announced in July 2019 that it would cut almost 12,400 staff, or 10% of its global workforce. Reuters reported that the company’s plans to streamline its European business would focus on SUVs and commercial vehicles.
Bloomberg’s sources said that the Japanese carmaker will phase out the Datsun brand, and shutter one production line. It is shutting down plants in Spain and Indonesia as part of the cost cutting.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered plants and showrooms and devastated global sales, Nissan was struggling with the fallout from the drama with former group chairman Carlos Ghosn.
Ghosn had been arrested for alleged fraud by the Japanese authorities in 2018, and then he jumped bail at the end of 2019, and fled to his home country of Lebanon.
READ MORE: New car sales in the EU crashed by 76% in April
Ghosn attacked Nissan’s management and the Japanese legal system in a dramatic press conference in Beirut in January, saying that the company had plotted his ouster and comparing his arrest to “Pearl Harbor.”
