Automotive: Nissan to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide

Troubles are mounting for Nissan: the Japanese automaker plans to cut an additional 10,000 jobs worldwide, Japanese media reported Monday. In November, the company had already announced the elimination of 9,000 positions.

Public broadcaster NHK said the total of 19,000 job cuts would reduce Nissan's workforce by about 15 percent.

Record annual loss announced Tuesday

This news comes a day before the group's financial results for its staggered 2024-25 fiscal year, which ended at the end of March. Nissan is expected to announce a record annual loss on Tuesday, which it forecasts could reach up to €4.6 billion against a backdrop of painful restructuring, weakening the manufacturer following the failure of its merger with Honda and facing US tariffs.

Nissan, whose stock has lost 40% over the past year, remains under pressure from a colossal debt load: rating agencies have downgraded its debt to speculative category, with Moody's pointing to its "low profitability" and "its aging model range" as fueling the decline in sales.

The failure of the merger with Honda

The group appears very fragile: while it had begun negotiations with its healthier compatriot Honda at the end of 2024 with a view to a merger that could give rise to the world's third-largest manufacturer, in the hope of catching up on its electric car market, the discussions collapsed in mid-February . This debacle precipitated the departure a month later of CEO Makoto Uchida, replaced by the Mexican Ivan Espinosa who intends to further strengthen the "recovery plan".

In fact, the outlook remains bleak. Nissan recently abandoned its newly approved plan for a billion-dollar battery plant in southern Japan. And in addition to waning demand, Nissan is caught in the turmoil of the trade war.

The impact of US customs duties

Since the beginning of April, Washington has imposed a 25% surcharge on cars imported into the United States. Last year, Nissan generated 30% of its global sales there: 924,000 vehicles, 45% of which were imported from Japan and Mexico. Among the major Japanese automakers, Nissan will likely be the hardest hit, explains Tatsuo Yoshida, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. For the time being, Nissan says it has "significant" inventories at its American dealerships, but afterward, it will face a dilemma.

Nissan's customer base has historically been more price-sensitive than its competitors', and "so it can't pass the costs (of tariff surcharges) on to consumers as much as Toyota or Honda without suffering a significant sales decline," Yoshida said.