It isn't just the game industry that likes to lay off large portions of its work force – the car industry has started to adopt that business practice, as well. As announced by Nissan today, the carmaker will cut its total workforce by 12,500 employees over the course of the next three years.
Though that's a massive amount of lost jobs, it's not hard to see why Nissan has made this decision. In Nissan's latest financial report, the company says it's "operating income" has dropped by an astounding 98 percent, and their overall net income has dipped by 95 percent.
That is a tremendous blow to Nissan's bottom line, and it'll be quite difficult for the company to recover from this state. However, Nissan chief executive Hiroto Saikawa believes it's possible.
"We knew the pace of sales would be tough, but I think we have to admit that it was slightly below our expectations," he said in a statement. "But I believe we can fully recover to our expectation levels in the second and third quarter." It remains to be seen whether or not Saikawa can follow up on those plans.
In more concrete numbers, Nissan's net income in Q1 2019 was only about 6.4 billion yen ($59 billion). By contrast, their net income during the same period of 2018 was roughly 115.8 billion yen ($1 billion).
The primary reasons for Nissan's lower profit this year are exchange rate fluctuations, "investments to meet regulatory standards," and high raw material costs. By laying off thousands of employees over the coming years, Nissan hopes to "streamline" its production and cut costs while it weathers the storm.