Nissan to ax 9,000 jobs, cut global output as U.S. business falters

Nissan Motor Co. said Thursday it will cut 9,000 jobs and reduce global output capacity by 20 percent as the Japanese carmaker’s U.S. and Chinese businesses continue to struggle.

The job cut represents about 7 percent of its entire workforce. Nissan also said it will sell part of its stake in its alliance partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp.

The maker of the Leaf electric car and the Ariya sport utility vehicle will downsize its global production capacity to about 4 million vehicles from the current 5 million cars, it said.

For the fiscal half ended September, its net profit dropped 93.5 percent to 19.22 billion yen ($125 million). Operating profit slid 90.2 percent to 32.91 billion yen on sales of 5.98 trillion yen, down 1.3 percent.

The sluggish results led the company to revise its full-year forecasts. It now predicts 150 billion yen in operating profit for fiscal 2024, down 70 percent from 500 billion yen forecast in July, on sales of 12.7 trillion yen, also downgraded from 14 trillion yen.

Nissan said it cannot predict net profit, which it said will depend on the ongoing turnaround efforts. It previously forecast a profit of 300 billion yen.

Nissan has suffered from increased incentives it had to pay for its dealerships in the United States to survive intensifying competition there, the company said. Its sales in China were also dented in the face of powerful local rivals offering more affordable electric vehicles.

The automaker, which does not have hybrid models for sale in the United States, has been struggling in the world’s second biggest auto market amid the rising popularity of the genre following slowing sales of EVs, which are more expensive.

“Sales of our core models did not reach the level we had expected them to,” Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida said at a press conference. “The market environment has become extremely severe.”

The carmaker also lowered its global sales target for the current fiscal year to 3.4 million vehicles from the earlier forecast of 3.65 million.

Uchida said he will take a 50 percent cut in his salary for the time being to take responsibility for the dismal earnings.

Nissan, which owns about 34 percent of Mitsubishi Motors, will sell up to about 10 percent of the partner’s outstanding shares in an apparent effort to improve Nissan’s financial health.

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