Report: Mass Layoffs Coming to Nissan Workforce
A Tuesday report in Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review claims Nissan is poised to lay off up to 10,000 U.S. workers until assembly work can resume. That’s essentially the automaker’s entire U.S. workforce, and the situation looks pretty much the same overseas.
The layoffs, which would obviously be sans pay, target Nissan’s vehicle assembly plants in Smyrna, Tennessee and Canton, Mississippi, plus the massive Decherd Powertrain Plant in Tennessee. Nikkei claims layoffs will also come to 6,000 workers in the UK and a further 3,000 in Spain. Most, if not all, are expected to be rehired once plants come back online.
Nissan, already reeling from a steep plunge in pre-pandemic sales and associated hits to its balance sheet, announced the pending shutdown of its U.S. plants on March 18th. The idle period was first pegged at March 20th to April 6th. That period soon grew, with the last word from Nissan being that the facilities will remain shuttered “through late April.”
“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will make adjustments as needed,” Nissan said on April 1st.
Mississippi Today reported 4,000 layoffs at Canton Assembly late Monday, with a company spokesperson claiming Nissan is attempting to fashion a return-to-work plan.
“Obviously safety is the most important thing, especially if the virus hasn’t started to flatten out in terms of new cases,” said Lloryn Love-Carter. “When you have that many people in a plant, we don’t want to be a reason for the cases to grow.”
[Image: Nissan]
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Nissan really needs to adopt the mantra of not letting a crisis go to waste. Now is the time for them to cull the Infiniti brand and the accompanying dealer network along with allow 1/3 or so of their Nissan dealers to throw in the towel and hand back the sign. Too many stores selling too few cars for little to no profit is disastrous. A lot of these stores have prime real estate that can be repurposed to another brand or industry that can generate revenue.
Not only cut the Infinity brand but cut the Titan and some of their cars. Even that might not be enough with their Jatco transmissions--"fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."
It seems that the Nature is on Ghosn side.
This is nothing compared to what is coming.