Toyota Cuts Bonuses
Bloomberg reports that Toyota will cut winter bonuses by about ten percent for some 8,700 managers. This is the first time Toyota has reduced bonuses since 1998, as economic headwinds batter even the strongest automakers. Toyota’s profit forecast was cut by 56 percent last month, spurring president Katsuaki Watanabe to create the cost-saving task force. Said hit squad recommended the bonus cuts as well as halving Toyota’s contract workforce by March 31. Watanabe has often warned his firm to beware the symptoms of what he calls “big company syndrome,” in reference to the problems with culture and execution that have reduced GM from its once-dominant position. Compared to Detroit’s production-slashing, brand-reviewing, bailout-mongering approach to hard times, Toyota is looking relatively nimble. Oh, and its projected to earn $5.7b in actual profit this year. It’s not the $18b of a year ago, but at least Watanabe isn’t staring at the possibility of a $1/year salary.
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Well, considering that Watanabe makes an order of magnitude less (base salary) than Rick Wagoner, it's rather a moot point.
Telling that ToMoCo did this without being shamed into it, or as a REACTION to anything except the market and sales environment (not the press, or a politician). It is called CONSERVATION of CORPORATE ASSETS, a concept with which Rick Wagoner is completely unfamiliar. Even though ToMoCo is sitting on an Everest of cash, they treat everything as a finite resource. If the auto industry were a children's story, our Japanese friends would be the ants, and the Detroit 2.05 would be the profligate grasshoppers....oh, wait. It's winter, and the D2.05 are knocking on Congress' door looking for a handout.....get some children's stories have relevance to real life after all....