Nissan To Layoff 1,700 Staff In India As Part Of Global Restructuring Plan

Following the announcement of a fall in its quarterly earnings on Thursday, Nissan Motor Co unveiled its biggest restructuring plan in a decade, wherein, it will be laying off a tenth of its total global workforce.

Over the next three years, the Japanese automaker will fire 12,500 employees globally, of which, it will hand pink slips to over 1,700 workforces in India. The company said that it has already started with the plan and asked 6,400 workers to leave in 2018 and 2019.

For the first quarter of the financial year 2019-20, Nissan's profits fell by 98.5 percent to 1.6 billion yen in comparison to 109.1 billion yen that it reported in the same quarter a year ago.

The company said that the majority of its job cuts will be made among the automobile plant workers and in 14 of its global locations. India will account for 13.5 percent of the planned layoffs.

It will also fire 1,420 employees in the US, about 1,000 employees in Mexico, 830 in Indonesia and another 880 employees from two of its facilities in Japan.

Nissan Motor India had announced an "Employee Voluntary Separation Scheme" in September 2018 as part of its measure to cut costs.

The Japanese automaker on Thursday said that the financial results posted in the recent quarter, which is their worst since the financial crisis in 2008, was "extremely severe." The company, however, highlighted its potential for new technologies like artificial intelligence and zero emission software that could help change its fortunes. It announced a reduction in its production capacity by 10 percent by the end of the fiscal year 2022. It also added that its profits fell due to a lag in sales, high raw material costs and difficult foreign exchanges.