Toyota Motor output in Japan is likely to fall below 3m units in the 2009/10 fiscal year ending 31 March, possibly hitting the lowest level in 31 years, company sources said on Tuesday.
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Toyota expects domestic production to fall over 30% year on year to around 2.8m units, from the estimated 3.4m units for fiscal 2008/9, the sources told Kyodo News.
The Yomiuri Shimbun said Toyota consider 3m the minimum production level necessary to maintain its 69,000 regular employees in Japan. Pressure would mount for a reduction in the number of the regular workers.
Domestic production has so far been about 8,000 vehicles a day in April, half the level of a year earlier, it added.
If the fiscal 2009 output comes down to the estimated level, it would be the lowest since fiscal 1978, when the output was 2.89m. In fiscal 2007 alone, Toyota booked a record high domestic output of about 4.26m, Kyodo said.
Toyota told suppliers last February it expected to build 6.2m units globally this fiscal year so, if domestic production remains at around 2.8m, overseas output would be about 3.4m, down about 8% year on year.
Since fiscal 1979, Toyota has assembled about 3m to 4m passenger cars a year in Japan.
Since the company began overseas production for the first time in the United States in the mid-1980s, the number of cars built abroad has persistently climbed, surpassing domestic output in fiscal 2005, Kyodo added.
