Nissan has announced that hundreds of jobs will be cut at its Sunderland plant. The Japanese auto-maker said the lay-offs would be in the form of ‘voluntary redundancies’. The move is part of the beleaguered corporate behemoth’s plan to reduce its global workforce by 15 per cent following several disastrous years, not least because of slow demand for its fleet of electric cars.

Some sympathy is due perhaps, at least for Nissan in the UK

While the cuts only affect four per cent of the plant’s 6,000 workers, the question now is whether this is just the start. So serious is the state of Nissan’s finances – it announced losses of $4.5 billion (£3.3 billion) in 2024, with this year not expected to be any better – that it would be foolish to assume this is where it will end.

The company has maintained that the Sunderland plant is at the heart of its corporate strategy and it justified the lay-offs as necessary to produce a ‘leaner more flexible’ operation. Football mad Mackems though might note that these comments sound uncomfortably like the endorsements football club chairmen give under-fire managers days before they, well, fire them.........

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