Just weeks after it announced that it would continue to pay employees that had been sent home their salaries, Nissan has now revealed that it will be laying off most of its hourly manufacturing employees in its US manufacturing plants. The Japanese automaker announced that it plans to furlough around 10,000 employees, most of which will be those working in its plants in Mississippi and Tennessee.
Nissan spokeswoman, Lloryn Love-Carter, told reporters on Tuesday that most of those who will be affected are employees working at its Canton, Mississippi plant and its plants in Smyrna and Decherd in Tennessee. She added that due to the ongoing spread of the pandemic in the US, which has now climbed to more than 400,000 confirmed cases, the company expects that its plants may not reopen anytime soon.
So far, the company has already laid off around 4,000 employees at its manufacturing facility in Canton, which was originally established in 2003. Around 1,250 employees at the plant, mostly those in administrative, managerial, and maintenance positions, are still working at the facility despite the production shutdown.
Nissan had already advised affected employees to seek unemployment benefits from the Mississippi government, which can provide them with a maximum benefit of $235 per week. New federal legislation has bumped up the amount to $600 per week, but it still isn't clear when the new law will take effect in Mississippi. Nissan claims that the benefits provided under the CARES Act should at least provide affected workers with adequate resources to provide for their families temporarily.
The company is asking those who will be affected by the layoffs in its other plants to also apply for unemployment, at least until April 27. Nissan previously stated that it plans to restart production during that date but it still is not yet certain if it can fulfill that promise given the continued increase in confirmed cases in the country.
Love-Carter stated that the safety of the company's employees is its number one concern and they are still trying to come up with a strategy to safely bring employees back to work. She pointed out that the country's infection rate has yet to flatten out and Nissan doesn't want to exacerbate the problem by bringing its employees back to work too soon.
Nissan officially closed its US plants back in March 20, other automotive manufacturers also followed suit. So far, Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler have all shut down their facilities in the US as the spread of the coronavirus continues.
