Nissan to lay off 1,000 Mexican workers, due to market challenges

Nissan Motor will lay off about 1,000 employees in Mexico at two factories, due to “challenging market conditions,” the company stated on Thursday.

The layoffs will impact Nissan’s Cuernavaca and Aguascalientes manufacturing facilities. The company is still figuring out how the cuts will be distributed throughout the two plants but has already started laying off people in Aguascalientes, Herman Morfin, a spokesman for Nissan Mexico, informed Reuters.

In a separate email, Brian Brockman, Nissan’s director of corporate communications, wrote that the automaker would adjust its production levels “in response to challenging market conditions in Mexico.”

The automaker attributed its decision to a “decline suffered by the Mexican automotive industry,” driven by a boost in the costs of raw materials, among other factors.

In May, the automaker stated it would decrease vehicle production by up to 20 percent in North America. The decision was a reply to the company’s decreasing profitability in the United States, the world’s second-biggest auto market and Nissan’s top market for sales.