Carlos Ghosn, COO of Nissan, announced today plans to slash Nissan's worldwide work force by 14 percent and close down five plants including Murayama plants.

Number of people working for Nissan including not only first and second tier suppliers but third tier suppliers and small jobbers is said to be about 500,000. 14 per cent cut of Nissan's people means that about 14 per cent of 500,000 work force, namely 70,000 people may lose jobs. This is a very serious affair. Nevertheless TV and radio news in Japan reported it in short as one of news items. Meanwhile BBC World News reported repeatedly the affairs as the world top news of the day. They reported it in details. The news is on the internet. The above left picture is from MSNBC online news. The right pictures are from Nikkei Evening papers dated October 18 and an AP news online provided by Yahoo!finance.

The Summerland plant of Nissan in United Kingdom has been manufacturing about 200,000 units a year. Although the plant's production efficiency has been one of the highest among European auto factories, its products became obsolete and hard to sell since the end of last year. Although they tried to change production model to the more competitive one, they have been short of capital. They advocated that it would be possible to add 5,000 more employees to the present 9,000, if they can start the production of new model. And it was said that the Blair regime would be obliged to resign if the factory went broke. As it the factory is surviving well today, a part of capital invested by Renault to Nissan might be allotted to the plant, I imagine.

It is an economic and social serious affair for a nation that thousands of auto workers lose jobs. I do not know any auto company in the world which cut jobs without preliminary talking with unions and governments after the Second World War. I am surprised by the slow and dull reactions of Japanese government, mass media and unions against a restructuring plan draw up by Nissan with Renault. This is the most important problem for the Obuchi regime. If he fails to overcome the affairs, he would be obliged to resign.

The Business Week October 11 Issue (published 10 days earlier or sometime like that) reported that a big restructuring plan of Nissan was under study lead by Ghosn and that it would be approved at a board of directors meeting held on October 16. If they read the report, not only government but mass media too might be able to have enough time for prepare themselves to the affairs.

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