Toyota, Honda and Nissan Furlough 32,000 Workers

After extending the shutdown of their North American manufacturing facilities, Japan’s three biggest automakers are now forced to furlough thousands of workers.

Collectively, Toyota (5,000), Honda (16,900) and Nissan (10,000) have temporarily stopped paying nearly 32,000 people and asked them to file for unemployment benefits. In Toyota’s case, the plan doesn’t affect direct employees but rather the roughly 5,000 people that temp agencies employ to help staff its idled plants.

• Also: COVID-19’s Impact on Canadian Car Sales Finally Measured
• Also: Some Relief for Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota Customers in Canada

The executives at Toyota, Honda and Nissan in charge of Canadian operations have yet to make any announcement regarding furloughed employees, mind you.

Across the industry, pretty much every auto company is desperately seeking ways to curb the loss of revenues and conserve cash in order to survive the COVID-19 crisis and rebound when this is all over.

During the past few days, Tesla and BMW have also announced plans to furlough thousands more workers.

Back to the Japanese Big Three. Toyota has decided to extend the shutdown of its North American plants a third time—more specifically until May 4—not only due to public health concerns but also weak demand. Its service parts operations and finished vehicle logistics centres will continue to operate in order to meet the ongoing needs of customers.

At Honda, which interrupted production on March 23, plants are scheduled to reopen in early May, as well. Same thing at Nissan, which said that facilities in the U.S. will remain closed through late April. Some business-essential work that must be done on site will continue with enhanced safety measures.

As reported last week, new light-duty vehicle sales in Canada fell 20 percent during the first quarter of 2020 including a 48-percent drop in March. Second-quarter results will likely be even more catastrophic.