Nissan forcing employees to take unpaid furlough

In an effort to cut costs, Nissan North America is requiring employees to take a two-day unpaid furlough and cutting employee travel in half.

The company is closing its offices and factories on Jan. 2 and 3, 2020, but not its dealerships, forcing about 21,000 salaried and contract workers to take two days off without pay. The furlough will result in a 9.2 percent cut in January paychecks, reports Fortune Magazine.

The move will “optimize business performance and competitiveness,” the company said in an email statement.

Nissan recently released its quarterly report, showing no break in a year-long slump in sales of both its Nissan and Infiniti brand automobiles. So far in 2019, sales are off by 12.6 percent from last year, and its profits from July through September are about half of what it earned during the same period last year.

Sales of the company’s struggling premium line, Infiniti, has dropped by nearly 19 percent

In January, Nissan said it would cut about 700 jobs at its Canton, Miss., plant as part of an overall layoff of 12,500 jobs worldwide.

Carmakers will be eliminating some 80,000 jobs in the coming years, according to Bloomberg News, with cuts mostly in Germany, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Just this past week, Daimler AG and Audi announced combined layoffs of some 19,500 workers, joining Nissan, General Motors and the Ford Motor Company in reassessing their workforces as worldwide sales continue to decline and automobile technologies change.