Nissan decides to reduce about 15 percent of its global workforce

 Nissan lays off 20,000 employees after its worst annual loss in 25 years

Nissan decided to reduce about 15 percent of its global workforce, by about 20,000 employees, after the Japanese automaker announced the largest loss in the fiscal year that just ended, since the French automaker Renault saved it from bankruptcy a quarter of a century ago, in light of the decline in car sales in China and other countries.

The Japanese automaker revealed its financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, which showed net losses amounting to 670.9 billion Japanese yen (about 4.5 billion dollars), compared to net profits of 426.6 billion yen in the previous year.

Nissan Motor said it would reduce the number of its factories from 17 to 10, as part of what it described as a recovery plan that aims to take “decisive and bold measures to improve performance and build a more flexible and efficient business, capable of quickly adapting to market changes.”

The Yokohama-based company added that the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on car imports also hurt its results.

Nissan aims to reduce its expenses by 250 billion yen ($1.7 billion) during the next fiscal year, compared to the results of fiscal year 2024, which ended in March.

Nissan, which had more than 133,000 employees as of March last year, revealed plans last November to lay off 9,000 employees and reduce its global production capacity by 20 percent.

The company also announced that it will close a factory in Thailand by June, and will close two other factories that it did not specify.

On Friday, the company announced that it had decided to abandon a plan to build a $1.1 billion factory, for which it was scheduled to receive government support, for electric car batteries on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu.