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News - NissanNissan to cut UK jobs: reportJobs go at Sunderland plant in Britain as Nissan desperately tries to save cash2 Jul 2025 NISSAN is reportedly seeking voluntary job cuts at its Sunderland manufacturing plant in the UK to help address a $A7.2 billion loss last financial year.
The cuts are part of the ‘Re:Nissan’ revitalisation plan under new CEO Ivan Espinosa that the 92-year-old Japanese auto-maker hopes will take it back into the black.
Mr Espinosa has the onerous tasks of scaling back Nissan’s global production capacity, rekindling flagging sales, refreshing ageing parts of its product line-up, wrangling billions of dollars in fixed and variable cost cuts, paying off a mountain of debt, restoring the company’s credit rating to above junk status and digging it out of record red ink.
Targeting a 15 per cent reduction to its global workforce, Sunderland appears to be Nissan’s first cab off the rank for culling as it addresses an immediate cash squeeze.
According to Automotive News Europe (ANE), Nissan began talks last week seeking an undisclosed number of job cuts in a move “aimed at increasing the efficiency of the Sunderland plant in northeastern England to make it a 'leaner, more flexible' operation”.
“It did not say how many job cuts it was targeting but Japan’s Kyodo News, which reported the planned cuts, said Nissan was aiming to lay off 250 workers.”
Nissan said in a June 30 statement that it was talking to Sunderland employees about voluntary retirement “opportunities” and support from the company.
It is the first move in Mr Espinosa’s Re:Nissan plan that will see the closure of seven Nissan plants world-wide, though ANE says Sunderland is not one of them because it is seen as critical in Nissan’s European operations and will be the source of Nissan’s new-generation Leaf BEV.
Further evidence of Nissan’s urgent cash-generating activities comes from Reuters, which reported that the Japanese manufacturer is asking some suppliers in Britain and the European Union to accept delays in payment.
The move would allow the automaker to have more cash on hand at the close of the April-June first quarter and follows similar requests before the end of the last financial year in March the Reuters report said.
The practice is apparently not uncommon as other manufacturers often request payment extensions from suppliers to help free up cash.
In a statement to Reuters, Nissan said it had incentivized some of its suppliers to collaborate under more flexible payment terms, at no cost to them, to support its free cash flow.
“They could choose to be paid immediately or opt for a later payment with interest.”
At a local level, Nissan Australia has moved to increase sales through permanent discounts of between $1035 and $3000 to its X-Trail medium SUV, presumably in an effort to generate more cash for head office.
Nissan Australia’s market share in the medium SUV segment has increased slightly from 7.6 per cent to 7.7 per cent so far in 2025 and the decision to permanently reduce pricing is expected to stoke additional customer demand.  Read more19th of June 2025  More details emerge on third-gen Nissan LeafLatest Leaf to leverage Ariya’s driveline and battery technology, due in Australia before 2026 |
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