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Exclusive: Nissan offers buyouts to US workers, halts global pay rises, internal emails show
Nissan
TOKYO, May 28 (Reuters) - Japan's Nissan has started offering buyouts to U.S. workers and has suspended merit-based wage increases worldwide, internal emails reviewed by Reuters showed, as the automaker expands cost cuts amid weak performance in key markets.
CEO Ivan Espinosa announced a new round of cost cuts this month that include closing seven production sites globally and cutting 11,000 more jobs, taking its total planned workforce reduction to around 20,000.
As part of the cuts, Nissan has offered separation packages to workers at its Canton plant in Mississippi as well as to salaried workers in human resources, planning, information technology and finance, showed one email sent last week.
"While substantial efforts have been made in the U.S. to help right-size Nissan, we need to take additional, limited, strategic action here at a local level," Nissan Americas Chairman Christian Meunier said in the email. The plan is "crucial for Nissan's comeback," he said
Reuters could not determine how many people have been offered buyouts or how many have accepted.
A separate email reviewed by Reuters showed Japan's third-biggest automaker has also suspended merit-based pay increases globally for the current business year.
The automaker said in a statement that Nissan North America is offering a voluntary separation program to a limited group of U.S. salaried employees. It declined to give more details as the process is ongoing.
But Nissan's operating profit margin in North America including the U.S., its biggest market, worsened in the business year ended March, even as it sold more cars than a year earlier.
It offered buyouts to Canton workers after launching a job-cut plan in November and has now followed that up with another round.
