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Nissan Cuts Jobs in Spain

The Spanish automotive market, one of the most crisis-damaged market in Europe is to receive yet another blow to both its prestige and its hopes for better times. Nissan has reached an agreement with its Spanish unions to cut their Barcelona plant's employment scheme by a third (about 1,680 jobs) Autonews reported. Nissan took it upon itself to provide employment search assistance to those who choose voluntary buyouts by 2011.

The downsizing will bring the Japanese manufacturer's workforce down to 2,800 workers. Nissan said the cuts are based on output forecasts of 128,000 vehicles a year, about 80 percent of the plant's capacity. The new scheme will rescale work shifts at the facility to two a day.

Nissan's Spanish factory finds itself in a tight spot. Production of the Nissan Pathfinder and the Navara pick-up truck models is no longer enough to make it cost effective. Scaling down the workforce will solve the problem for now, but Nissan officials told the aforementioned source a new vehicle is essential for continuing operations in Barcelona after 2012.

Nissan announced today its global production in January fell by 54 percent year-on-year to 145,286 units. The largest single country drop in production was registered by Nissan in Spain. Their output crashed by 89.4 percent.

The Spanish government was urged to step forth and lend a hand and they did so by unlocking 4 billion euros to help the industry. In turn, the government required local manufactures to protect jobs as much as possible.

Over the past few years, the automotive industry has accounted for about 6 percent of the country's economic growth. In all, the segment employs 350,000 people.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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