Nissan cuts 9,000 jobs as vehicle sales drop
Delhi Delhi: Nissan on Thursday reported a loss for the latest fiscal quarter as its vehicle sales fell while costs and inventories surged, forcing the Japanese automaker to cut 9,000 jobs.Chief Executive Officer Makoto Uchida said he was taking a 50 per cent pay cut to take responsibility for the disappointing results, and promised that change was coming.Nissan Motor Corporation announced cuts of 9,000 people globally, about 6 per cent of its more than 1,33,000 workforce, as well as plans to cut global production capacity by 20 per cent.
Uchida declined to say which areas would be affected by the cuts or give specifics.For the latest quarter through September, Nissan posted a loss of 9.3 billion yen ($60 million), a reversal from a profit of 190.7 billion yen recorded in the same quarter a year earlier.Quarterly sales fell to 2.9 trillion yen ($19 billion) from 3.1 trillion yen.Uchida acknowledged Nissan did not react quickly or flexibly enough to global changes, including market tastes and rising raw material costs.
“I take this situation very seriously,” he told reporters. Nissan will restructure its business to make it leaner and more flexible.Nissan models did not sell well in the U.S., one of the world’s most lucrative auto markets that has recently been dominated by Ford, Toyota and Tesla.Uchida said all aspects of Nissan’s operations and plans would be reviewed.Nissan, based in the port city of Yokohama, reported sales revenue of 5.98 trillion yen ($39 billion) in the first half of the fiscal year, down 1 percent from the 6 trillion yen in the same period last year.
Its total profit from April to September was 19.2 billion yen ($124 million), far below the 296.2 billion yen it earned in the six months last year. Nissan lowered its sales revenue forecast for the fiscal year through March 2025 to 12.7 trillion yen ($82 billion) from 14 trillion yen ($91 billion). It did not give a net profit forecast, citing uncertainty. It promised to give a profit forecast as soon as possible. Previously, Nissan was forecasting an annual profit of 300 billion yen ($1.9 billion). Nissan now expects to sell 3.4 million vehicles worldwide in the fiscal year ending in March 2025, down from the 3.65 million vehicles previously estimated. The new figure is roughly the same as Nissan sold in the previous fiscal year. Nissan said it is appointing a chief performance officer to make turnaround decisions, who will start his job next month. No dividend will be paid given the harsh results.
