Automotive: Nissan Plans 10,000 New Job Cuts

MANUFACTURING: Nissan is expected to announce a record annual loss on Tuesday, which it forecasts could amount to up to 4.6 billion euros amid painful restructuring

Nissan plans to remove 10,000 jobs more worldwide, Japanese media reported Monday, after the struggling automaker announced in November that it would cut 9,000 jobs.

State broadcaster NHK explained that the move reduces Nissan’s total workforce by about 15%. The group declined to comment on this information, also published by the business daily Nikkei.

A poor performance which can be explained “by the costs linked to the recovery plan”

This news comes the day before the publication of the group’s financial results for its staggered 2024-25 financial year ended at the end of March. Nissan is expected to announce a record annual loss on Tuesday, which according to its forecasts could rise to 4.6 billion euros against a backdrop of painful restructuring, weakening the manufacturer after the breakdown of the marriage with Honda and facing the american surcharges.

The group warned on the 24th April that it anticipated an unprecedented net loss “between 700 and 750 billion yen”. A poor performance can be explained according to Nissan “by the costs linked to the recovery plan”: faced with the slowdown in sales in its key American and Chinese markets, it announced, in addition to job cuts, to reduce its production capacities.

The costs of the recovery measures are expected to have exceeded 60 billion yen (370 million euros) while a revaluation of “production assets” led to depreciation of some 3.1 billion euros, the manufacturer said in April.

A weakened group

Nissan, whose shares have lost 40% over the past year, remains under pressure from colossal debt: rating agencies have also lowered the rating of its debt in the speculative category, with Moody’s pointing to its “low profitability ” and “its range of aging models” fueling the decline in sales.

The group appears very weakened: while it began negotiations at the end of 2024 with its healthier compatriot Honda with a view to a marriage that could give birth to the third largest manufacturer in the world, in the hope of catching up in the electric sector, discussions collapsed in mid-February.

This debacle precipitated the departure a month later of CEO Makoto Uchida, replaced by the Mexican Ivan Espinosa who intends to further strengthen the “recovery plan”.