Three-and-a-half thousand workers at Nissan’s Sunderland plant were sent home yesterday and told not to report back to work until Monday as the Japanese automotive giant shut down its lines for the rest of the week.
The workers will remain on full-pay during the down-time and Nissan said this, plus possible further production cuts until the end of the year, will ensure no redundancies and ‘back-to-normal’ production for 2009.
“The economic crisis continues to significantly affect all car makers globally, and it is essential that Sunderland continues taking the right action now to protect the future of the company by matching volume to softening customer demand,” said a spokesperson for the company.
“Business conditions remain highly volatile and Sunderland will continue to take any appropriate action if and when needed.”
Six further days downtime has been planned before Christmas during which staff will either train or stay at home.
The firm has already cut production in many of its factories across the globe but Sunderland has remained constant due to its production of the newly released Qashqai +2.
Figures released last month show sales in Europe for Nissan in October were down 18.8% year-on-year to 40,629, while total world-wide sales were down 10.2% to 263,853 units compared to the previous year.
