Nissan to cut 11,000 more jobs and shut seven factories

Japanese carmaker Nissan has said it will cut another 11,000 jobs globally and shut seven factories as it shakes up the business in the face of weak sales.

Falling sales in China and heavy discounting in the US, its two biggest markets, have taken a heavy toll on earnings, while a proposed merger with Honda and Mitsubishi collapsed in February.

The latest cutbacks brings the total number of layoffs announced by the company in the past year to about 20,000, or 15% of its workforce.

It was not immediately clear where the job cuts will be made, or whether Nissan’s plant in Sunderland will be affected.

Nissan employs about 133,500 people globally, with about 6,000 workers in Sunderland.

The latest layoffs come on top of 9,000 job cuts Nissan announced in November as part of a cost saving effort that it said would reduce its global production by a fifth.

In February, talks between Nissan and its larger rival Honda collapsed after the firms failed to agree on a multi-billion-dollar tie-up.

The plan had been to combine their businesses to fight back against competition from rival firms, especially in China.

The merger would have created a $60bn (£46bn) motor industry giant, the fourth largest in the world by vehicle sales after Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai.

After the failure of the negotiations, then-chief executive Makoto Uchida was replaced by Ivan Espinosa, who was the company’s chief planning officer and head of its motorsports division.

Nissan also reported an annual loss of 670 billion yen ($4.5bn; £3.4bn), with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs putting further pressure on the struggling firm.

Mr Espinosa said that the previous financial year had been “challenging”, with rising costs and an “uncertain environment”, adding that the results were a “wake-up call”.