Nissan offers buyouts to US workers, halts global pay rises
Cutting the US workforce runs counter to President Donald Trump's aim of creating jobs and boosting domestic manufacturing through initiatives including a 25% tariff on imported vehicles.
Nissan's operating profit margin in North America including the US, its biggest market, worsened in the business year ended March, even as it sold more cars than a year before.
It offered buyouts to Canton workers after launching a job cut plan in November and has followed that with another round.
Analysts attributed Nissan's troubles to factors including an ageing line-up, a lack of hybrid models in the US and excessive focus on increasing output under former top executive Carlos Ghosn, whose near two-decade year tenure ended in 2018.
Separately, Nissan on Tuesday said it had paid ¥646m (R80.2m) in compensation to former CEO Makoto Uchida and three other executive officers who left their positions at the end of March.
Nissan has yet to disclose a full list of production sites it plans to close. At home in Japan, Oppama and one other plant are under consideration, sources told Reuters this month.
Nissan has said it will consolidate Mexican and Argentinian pick-up truck production into a single Mexican site, and Renault will buy its stake in their joint Indian business. It has also said it would close a Thai plant by June.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported Nissan is considering raising more than ¥1-trillion from debt and asset sales which would include a syndicated loan guaranteed by the UK government.
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