pagemaster

This is insignificant in the larger pictures. The fact that employees get to purchase vehicles from their company or from their employee means nothing. This is just a simple employee "INCENTIVE" and thats all.

If company A has products that are in such high demand that everyone is buying them..then the company will cut this "incentive" or limited which products they can buy.

Layoffs are not good. They really aren't but sometimes the company is forced to either cut unproductive labor or close down the business.

speedflex

Shift_ pink slips.

Hate to hear about this... could it be a pattern of things to come for others as well?

Trexus

I'm very relaxed. In accounting terms there is a cost/benefit relationship with just about everything in business. The benefits should exceed the costs to stay in business otherwise the company goes under. Companies are in business to make money or breakeven not lose money. Losing money just doesn't make sense.

There is very little benefit selling vehicles to it's employees. Obviously it was more beneficial to layoff the employees at Nissan than keep them. Hopefully when the economy picks up Nissan can rehire them. Those laid off employees can rightfully apply for unemployment which will last them six months and in the mean time they can look for another job. The fact is our economy is in a recession and President Obama is working on fixing that...

mmarshall

Like I said, I know where you are coming from. But laying off those 20,000 employees helped MAKE the economy worse....20,000 more people are now (potentially) on unemployment, food stamps, welfare, or other kind of assistance that were not there before. If you throw fuel onto a roaring fire, as Nissan, GM, and Ford have done with layoffs, you only make that fire worse.

Of course there is a recession....that goes without saying. But why is there a recession? Partly because of layoffs, and partly becsaue people still WITH jobs are afraid to spend and buy things. And, never mind Obama,...corporations themselves can help by not throwing MORE fuel onto the fire with MORE layoffs.

Neither you or I are really wrong..........I think we're just looking at it from two different viewpoints. You look at it from a company expense point of view; I look at it from a sales and income point of view. Both play a part.

Trexus

One big reason we're in a recession is because the real estate industry's bubble burst. Lot's of banks and investment banks lost tons of money and the ripple effect is what we are experiencing now. I'm not gonna go into the details about the real estate industry but I'm sure you are aware.

I totally understand both sides of the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet. Yes, companies need to make lots of sales to generate revenue and manage their expenses to stay in business. You're only looking at sales but your forgetting the other side of the income statement. You are parially right but remember there is a much bigger picture when it comes to business...

dsp979

Having taken business classes 3 years ago, I totally understand where mmarshall is coming from.

It's still unfortunate, because I like Nissan products. Business is business.

gshb

layoffs are fine. its only when a substantial number of people are unemployed that problems arise. remember, companies are hiring people at the same time people are being laid off somewhere else. besides, america has learned that deficit spending is a tried and true way out of really bad recessions (or depressions). besides besides, 20,000 is about 10% total of which 8,000 are contractors or temporary workers. so really its like less than 6% full time workers are losing their jobs.

pagemaster

Have to say. This post makes a lot of sense.

IS-SV

Fortunately none of the Nissan job losses are in the US. But the painful decision to cut these jobs will hopefully secure the remaining jobs for some amount of time or until a recovery starts.