Embattled automaker Nissan has suspended merit-based pay increases globally for the current business year, according to a Reuters report quoting an email.
According to the report, the automaker said in a statement that Nissan North America is offering a voluntary separation programme to a limited group of U.S. salaried employees. It, however, declined to give more details as the process is ongoing.
The development was after its operating profit margin in North America, including the U.S., its biggest market, worsened in the business year ended March, even as it sold more cars than a year earlier.
The company has also started offering buyouts to U.S. workers and has suspended merit-based wage increases worldwide, internal emails also reviewed by Reuters showed.
CEO Ivan Espinosa announced a new round of cost cuts this month that include closing seven production sites globally and cutting 11,000 more jobs, taking its total planned workforce reduction to around 20,000.
As part of the cuts, Nissan has offered separation packages to workers at its Canton plant in Mississippi and salaried workers in human resources, planning, information technology and finance, according to the Reuters report.
“While substantial efforts have been made in the U.S. to help right-size Nissan, we need to take additional, limited, strategic action here at a local level,” Nissan Americas Chairman Christian Meunier said in the email quoted in the report. The plan is “crucial for Nissan’s comeback,” he said.
Reuters could not determine how many people have been offered buyouts or how many have accepted.
The firm offered buyouts to Canton workers after launching a job-cut plan in November and has now followed that up with another round.
Separately, Nissan on Tuesday said it had paid 646 million yen ($4.5 million) in compensation to former CEO Makoto Uchida and three other executive officers who left their positions at the end of March.
