Renault to axe 15,000 jobs worldwide⁠— 1,500 employees in India await their fate

• French auto giant Renault announced that it would lay off about 15,000 of its employees worldwide.
• The action comes as part of the company's ‎€2 billion ( ₹167 billion) cost-cutting plan over three years.
• Renault owns more than 4% of the global market and has more than 179,000 employees in 39 countries.

French auto giant Renault announced that it would lay off about 15,000 of employees worldwide and lower production capacity by almost a fifth, as a part of its ‎€2 billion ( ₹167 billion) cost-cutting plan over three years.

A major part of the layoff would happen in France— where the car giant will axe 4,600 jobs. Earlier the sources told Reuters that the car giant would offer a voluntary departure plan and a retirement scheme to bring the job cuts without redundancies.

In India, the company has 1,500 employees working in Oragadam near Chennai.The joint Renault-Nissan alliance plant at Chennai in India has a production capacity of 400,000 units. Less than a fourth of that is actually sold in India.

The company’s Indian unit earlier this year reported a 7.9% sales jump for 2019. The company sold around 88,869 units in 2019 against 82,368 in 2018. India is one of the top ten markets for Renault.

Renault owns more than 4% of the global market and has more than 179,000 employees in 39 countries.

The company has been experiencing turbulence even before the coronavirus pandemic started. The sales were down almost 3% last year with its first annual loss in a decade.

It is also in talks with the French government to obtain a €5 billion state-backed emergency loan package. However, the government has made this conditional on guarantees to keep workers and production in the country.

The company said the layoffs would affect just under 10% of its global workforce and would cost €1.2 billion to the company.

The news came after Japanese carmaker Nissan decided to close some plants and plans to become smaller and more efficient.
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