Japanese automaker Nissan is taking a big ax to its workforce. Reuters reports that the company plans to make some steep cuts to its operation, including 9,000 jobs and 20 percent of its global manufacturing capacity.
The cuts won’t just affect workers on the assembly lines. The New York Times reports that Nissan Chief Executive Officer Makoto Uchida is taking a 50 percent pay cut from his monthly compensation.
Japan’s third-largest automaker has to cut $2.6 billion in costs this fiscal year. Nissan revised its annual profit outlook by a whopping 70 percent as its struggles to sell cars in places like China and the US “where it lacks a credible line-up of hybrid cars.” Nissan’s global sales fell by 3.8 percent for the first half of the fiscal year, witha 14.3 percent drop in China and 3 percent drop in the US.
Nissan says in a press release that it’s taking “urgent measures to turnaround its performance” beyond just making cuts to its labor force. The automaker says its planning to introduce new energy efficient vehicles to China and plug-in hybrids and e-POWER vehicles in the US. So far, the only EVs in Nissan’s garage include the Leaf and the Ariya fleet.
Source: www.engadget.com