Nissan to cut over 10,000 jobs worldwide: reports

TOKYO– Japanese car giant Nissan plans to cut more than 10,000 jobs worldwide, reports said Wednesday, as it works to turn its fortunes around after its former chief was arrested over financial misconduct.

The cuts come after Nissan announced in May it would trim 4,800 posts from its global workforce of around 139,000. The decision reflects the firm's struggles in the wake of the arrest of Carlos Ghosn and a fall in sales in the United States and Europe.

In May, it reported net profit fell to a near-decade low and warned of "a difficult business environment" for the next 12 months. A Nissan spokesman had no comment on the job cuts reports, which came before the firm announces its first-quarter results on Thursday.

"We've not decided yet what we'll announce (at the Thursday earnings news conference), and we don't comment on (media) speculation," Nissan spokesman Koji Okuda told AFP. The Nikkei business daily said Wednesday that the firm would announce a 90 percent drop in operating profit for the first quarter owing to declining US sales.

The company has struggled in the US and Europe as it works through the aftermath of Ghosn's shock arrest. It has also faced tensions with its French partner Renault, which owns 43 percent of the Japanese manufacturer, and is undergoing an overhaul intended to strengthen governance after the Ghosn scandal.

The job cuts are likely to hit some factories in South America and other regions where Nissan has low profitability, Kyodo news agency said.

In May, Nissan reported net profits for the fiscal year to March of 319 billion yen ($2.9 billion) -- the lowest amount since 2009/10 when the company was struggling in the wake of the global financial crisis.

It was a decline of 57 percent from the previous fiscal year and the profit outlook for the current fiscal year was forecast to be even worse, at 170 billion yen.