Nissan will offer buyouts to eligible salaried workers in the United States who are not directly involved in manufacturing at the factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, a spokeswoman confirmed to local media on Monday night (28 January).
“The technicians, or those who build vehicles in Smyrna, are not included,” factory spokeswoman Lloryn Love-Carter told a local paper, the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal (dnj.com).
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“Nissan is offering voluntary separation packages to certain, indirect US-based employees, 55 years of age and older, in specific business units.”
The spokeswoman said Nissan had 22,000 workers in the US including 17,000 in manufacturing.
Nissan’s US direct and contractor workforce included about 8,400 at the assembly plant in Smyrna and 1,900 at the powertrain factory in Decherd, both in Tennessee.
Nissan relocated its US head office from the Los Angeles area to Franklin, a Nashville, Tennessee, suburb several years ago.
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By GlobalDataThe company last decade offered buyouts to Smyrna workers, dnj.com said.
“The company is offering voluntary separation packages to better leverage our workforce, optimise business operations and remain competitive in a challenging North America automotive market,” Love-Carter said.
“We cannot provide details on the number of employees that are being offered or are expected to take a separation package,” she added.
“Packages also are being offered to eligible employees in specific business units at other US based facilities.”
Those eligible for the buyout could include some of the 1,700 workers at the North American HQ in Franklin.
According to the report, Nissan also offered a separate buyout which only applied to its factory in Canton, Mississippi. That buyout included technicians who are 55 and older as the company prepares to reduce the production of its NV cargo and passenger vans, along with the Titan pickup trucks. The cuts become effective on 18 March.
The automaker had in December said it was axing 1,000 jobs at two factories in Mexico.
Smyrna produced nearly 600,000 vehicles in 2018.
“Our production plan is based on market demand,” Love-Carter told dnj.com.
Separately, Bloomberg reported Nissan was streamlining its northwest and mountain states regional sales offices to six other locations by 1 July but didn’t say how many staff would be impacted by the change or when those sites would cease to operate.
A Reuters report said Nissan planned to axe at least 4,300 salaried jobs and shut two factories as part of broader plans to improve profitability by at least JPY480bn (US$4.4bn) by 2023.
