(Reuters) TOKYO – According to a report from Kyodo news on Friday, as the Japanese carmaker battles to rebound from slumping auto sales, Nissan Motor Co. 7201.T is thinking of laying off 20,000 employees globally, with a concentration on Europe and developing nations.
The potential layoffs coincide with Nissan’s upcoming announcement of its revised mid-term plan the following week. The automaker’s profits have been in free fall for the past three years, and the coronavirus pandemic has only increased the need for and pressure on the corporation to redouble efforts to downsize and turn the business around.
The car manufacturer announced in July of last year that it will lay off 12,500 workers, or over 10% of its 140,000-person workforce. If Nissan increases that number, it will match the 20,000 jobs it lost in 2009 due to the global financial crisis.
Nissan was forced to scale back an aggressive expansion plan that its former boss, Carlos Ghosn, had been pursuing even before the coronavirus started to spread since sales and profitability had fallen and the company was burning through cash.
In order to better utilize the regional and technological advantages of all three automakers and to consolidate production capacities, it will concentrate on enhancing cooperation with France’s Renault SA RENA.PA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp 7211.T.
The survival of Renault, according to France’s finance minister, is in jeopardy if it doesn’t receive assistance quickly, and Mitsubishi earlier this week disclosed an 89% decline in yearly profit for the fiscal year that concluded on March 31.
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Why is Nissan firing workers?
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In response to the coronavirus outbreak, Honda and Nissan have reportedly extended work stoppages at US manufacturing facilities. Both Japanese automakers will reportedly take more harsh action as long as the global economy remains stagnant.
According to a report from Nikkei on Tuesday, the businesses intend to fire 10,000 employees from US plants. Since March 18, Honda’s US operations have been idle. On May 1, manufacturing is expected to resume. Nissan states that it will shut down its facilities until “late April.”
A Nissan representative informed Roadshow, “Temporary layoffs are being implemented by the company to help manage the business in areas where activity is down. Employees who are impacted may request for government assistance like increased unemployment compensation.”
Honda has paid full wages from the commencement of the work stoppage, but the Nikkei story claims that starting this Sunday, payments will stop. Honda stayed silent about the layoffs.
Nissan has facilities in Tennessee and Mississippi, whereas Honda’s primary US production facilities are spread throughout a number of states, including Ohio and Alabama.
In a layoff, who gets fired first?
A typical layoff proceeds as follows:
- Usually, you will receive a package of paperwork, which will include a copy of your employment contract and details on your benefits.
- Most likely, a senior team member and human resources will summon you into a meeting.
- You’ll receive your final paycheck in California at the meeting.
- They will outline the terms of your termination in a 30-minute period.
- Rarely will you be given severance money.
- An employee from HR or security will lead you to your workplace and assist you in packing necessary materials (things you cannot carry will be mailed to you)
- You will be taken off the property the same day after being requested to return your badge and equipment.
- You will be required to sign several documents and provide feedback regarding your interaction with the business.
If you are fired, find out how the decision was made; this information may be crucial if you decide to file a lawsuit.
You might not have anticipated this sudden, stressful, and emotional situation, so how you react now will determine how it turns out.
Picking who is laid off is a very detailed and legalistic procedure in large layoffs (a RIF, or Reduction In Force, in HR lingo); the process could take months at larger businesses.
The three most widely used tactics are forced rankings, performance reviews, and “last in, first out” (the most recently hired staff are let go first).
Companies frequently hire attorneys and perform a disparate impact analysis before making a decision (a statistical analysis of whether the RIF would disproportionately affect certain gender, race or age groups).
Your manager’s assessment of you has very little weight in this process because metrics are significantly weighted, unless it is well-supported by documentation.
Are there more layoffs now?
Employers, according to Sethi, “are concentrating on what they can control.” They have to decide what their tactics are for coping with geopolitics, supply-chain problems, inflation, and the war in Ukraine.
Other data indicate that the labor market is still healthy despite these unfavorable trends.
In July, employers increased payrolls by 528,000, exceeding forecasts and restoring all of the jobs lost as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. While job vacancies remained at historically high levels, the layoff rate lingered close to records lows in June.
The week ending August 13 saw over 250,000 initial jobless benefit claims, a little uptick from pre-epidemic levels but still a decrease from the spring.
From all the statistics we’ve seen, the labor markets are still extraordinarily strong, according to Sethi.
How do businesses choose who gets fired?
It’s scary to hear about layoffs in rumors. According to the authors of Career Minds, when you’re assessing your odds of being laid off, you should take into account a key indicators that layoff choices are frequently based on. Your work term is one of the biggest. The employees who have worked for the company the least amount of time are frequently the first to be let go by their employers. There isn’t much you can do to improve your circumstances if this describes you.
Job function is another important component. Can the majority of your job be automated or carried out by computers, or can you outsource it for less money? You’re in a challenging situation if either of those inquiries has a yes response. Ask your boss whether you can broaden your responsibilities or take on additional, more important tasks. Job performance does occasionally come into play; for instance, if a corporation needs to lose one-third of its sales staff, those with the lowest figures will almost definitely be more vulnerable than those with higher ones.
Nissan is it making a loss?
TOKYO — Nissan Motor Company announced a record annual loss on Tuesday as the coronavirus epidemic hurt sales of vehicles and the carmaker was forced to reduce output due to a scarcity of semiconductors around the world.
Nissan said in a statement that its annual operating loss increased from a 40 billion yen shortfall in the prior year to 150.65 billion yen ($1.38 billion) in the year ending March 31. Since the year that concluded in March 2019, the automaker has not turned a profit.
However, because of a resurgence in China’s revenues and cost-cutting, it outperformed its February prediction of a 205 billion yen loss.
Since the end of last year, the global auto sector has been dealing with a chip shortage, which has recently been made worse by a fire at a chip plant in Japan and blackouts in Texas, where several chipmakers have plants.
Due to the chip shortage, Nissan, which is retreating from the global growth led by ousted Chairman Carlos Ghosn, was forced to reduce production of its best-selling Note compact car in Japan and make temporary adjustments to output at its North American operations last quarter.
According to CEO Makoto Uchida, the business will achieve profitability this year as it works to reduce expenses and pique stagnant consumer interest with new models. However, Nissan’s performance during the pandemic in comparison to competitors like Toyota Motor Corporation and the toll the chip shortage is taking on the struggling automaker’s capacity to create automobiles reflect the company’s continued fragility.
Although Nissan’s business transformation is progressing steadily, the firm warned on Tuesday that there is “continuing business risk owing to semiconductor supply scarcity and raw material price hike in this fiscal year.”
Nissan has set its operating profit expectation at plus or minus zero while attempting to mitigate the effects of these risks and accounting for the potential impact.
Nissan has been implementing a turnaround strategy for a year now that calls for producing 12 new models in the 18 months leading up to November, cutting worldwide production capacity, and lowering incentives to increase margins. Sales of new models like the Rogue crossover are increasing thanks to recovering auto demand, and global deliveries in February were up year over year. They increased by 51% in March, with China accounting for more than 35% of Nissan’s sales.
Sales for the just finished fiscal year were down 13% year over year, however, due to losses in the first part of the year due to Covid lockdowns disrupting international markets. Nissan “is likely to struggle earlier and longer than others,” according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tatsuo Yoshida, and the chip scarcity is also anticipated to cost the auto sector millions in lost car sales this year.
What businesses will lay off staff in 2022?
- MasterClass dismissals: 20% of employees let go (June, 2022)
- Layoffs at Outbrain: 3% of the staff were let go (July, 2022)
- Layoffs at open sea: 20% of the workforce (July, 2022)
- 50% of the Virgin Hyperloop workforce has been laid off (February, 2022)
- 15% of the workers at The Mom Project was laid off (July, 2022)
- 20% of the staff at Snapchat was laid off (September, 2022)
- Unbelievable layoffs: 22% of the workforce was let go (June, 2022)
- Layoffs at Peloton: 20% of the staff is affected (February, 2022)
- 10% of the Beachbody employees was laid off (January, 2022)
- Lyft layoffs: 2% of employees were let go (July, 2022)
- Ninantic laid off 8% of its personnel (June, 2022)
- Taboola layoffs: 6% of employees were let go (September, 2022)
- Substack reductions in force: 14% of workers laid off (June, 2022)
- 25% of the staff was let go in the Cameo layoffs (May, 2022)
- Robinhood layoffs: 9% of employees were let go (April, 2022)
- Layoffs at Bird: 23% of the Workforce (June, 2022)
Which is preferable: quitting or being fired?
You might resign because the writing is on the wall about your future—or lack thereof—at your organization. You fear losing your job as a result of poor performance or because you don’t get along with your employer.
Should you quit and leave on your own terms or continue working till you’re fired?
Your ultimate choice will rely on whether your reputation or your financial line are your top priorities. Theoretically, resigning would be better for your reputation because it would appear like you made the decision and not your employer. But if you leave voluntarily, you might not be eligible for the same kind of unemployment benefits that you might be if you were fired.
Which month saw the most layoffs?
The year’s busiest month for layoffs and firings is January. Almost the past five years, January has seen over 2.1 million layoffs and firings on average. Over 10% of all layoffs and firings occur in January.