Nissan US job cuts underway as merger talks stall

The planned Honda-Nissan merger may not happen. The two companies had intended to make an announcement at the end of January regarding progress. Reports first emerged this had been delayed until mid-February but now talks appear to have shifted away from a merger into working together on specific projects. The two companies, along with Mitsubishi, had actually announced plans to work on vehicle electrification in August 2024 for example. This sort of idea, and others, may be revived; seemingly, creating a framework for a full merger has proved to be more challenging than expected.

One of the many problems at the heart of the merger talks is the scale of turnaround required at Nissan to get it into a fit state acceptable to Honda. In November, Nissan had announced a plan to cut 9,000 jobs, 6% of its 130,000 global workforce, alongside cutting production capacity by 20%. Remarkably, no plant closures were planned as part of this target, although closures or sales of underutilised operations in China will surely have to be addressed at some point. Whether or not it closes factories, Nissan has accepted it will have to do something significant to address its recent 90% fall in pre-tax profits. It is just not entirely clear what that something will be.