Nissan will cut 20,000 jobs globally, as the Japanese automaker announced Monday its first loss in nine years.
Nissan said it expects a net loss of $2.9 billion for its fiscal year, which ends March 31. Nissan said in October it estimated its annual earnings would be $1.8 billion.
"Our worst assumptions on the state of the global economy have been met or exceeded," Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn said Monday. Declining consumer confidence and lack of access to credit are "the most damaging factors," he added.
"In 1999, Nissan had a crisis," said Ghosn, who oversaw Nissan's restructuring in 1999 that included elimination of more than 20,000 jobs. "Today everyone has a problem. The financial crisis was supposed to be solved by now and it's not."
The 20,000 jobs equal about 9 percent of Nissan's workforce; the automaker's workforce will drop to 215,000 employees from 235,000. Of the job cuts, 60 percent will be in Japan, 20 percent will be in the U.S. and Europe and 20 percent will be in other regions.
In the U.S., Nissan's plants are on a four-day workweek indefinitely. Nissan recently announced it will eliminate about 110 jobs in its regional sales, marketing, product planning and design operations. It is moving its design operations from the Detroit suburbs to its California center.
In Japan, Nissan is in talks with unions about shortening the work week to four days.
The company will scale back new model introductions to 48 from a previously planned 60 over the next five years.
On Monday, Nissan created a position called chief recovery officer and named Colin Dodge to that post to oversee corporate planning and control. The automaker said Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga will expand his responsibilities to oversee the company's three sales regions.
Nissan also eliminated its second-half dividend.
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