Japan's Nissan Motor, the world's second-largest auto maker, said it was cutting 12,500 jobs, or 9 percent of all employees, after reporting that its quarterly profit fell to near zero.
The announcement on Thursday highlighted the ongoing crisis for the Japanese auto giant, fueled by low sales and rising prices, as well as the fallout from the financial scandal over the misconduct of ousted CEO Carlos Ghosn.
First quarter operating profit fell 98.5 percent to 1.6 billion yen ($ 14.80), mainly due to increased competition in a key market in North America, where the company had to increase its discounts on vehicles and reduce the cost of the brand image to keep up with the competition.
Nissan announced a sharp drop in earnings on Wednesday.
Nissan's April-June operating profit fell to 39.52 billion yen from an average of 109.14 billion yen a year earlier, according to analyst estimates provided by Refinitiv.
The company has not changed its profit forecast of 230 billion yen for the year ending March 2020, which is 28 percent less than last year and is the lowest in a decade.
