For employees of Japan's third largest automaker, Nissan Motor Co. (NASDAQ: NSANY), the news today was grim. Nissan announced it will be eliminating a hefty 8.5% of its workforce, or roughly 20,000 jobs.The news comes at a time when all automakers are struggling to deal with the global recession that continues to keep car buyers off the showroom floors. Nissan said it expects to report its first annual loss in the past nine years.
For the company's most recent quarter, October through December, Nissan reported a $904 million quarterly loss.
In addition to reducing its workforce, the company has been looking at other ways to reduce its overhead, and last week it announced it would be relocating the production of some of its vehicles abroad where labor can be found much cheaper than in the Japanese market. The company announced last week it would move the production of its top selling compact car, the Nissan March, from Japan to Thailand, and it expects to announce more production shifts in the months to come.
Nissan is also looking at the possibility of cutting back its work week to just four days to help reduce its labor costs, and another move is the reduction of new model introductions from 60 new models in the next five years, down to 48 new models.
The company's biggest market is the U.S., and in January U.S. sales declined 31% compared to the same period last year.
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