Nissan Will Continue Four-Day Weeks

Nissan North America Inc. will continue running its two U.S. assembly plants on reduced hours “indefinitely” because of slow U.S. sales.

Nissan’s auto plants in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Canton, Mississippi, have been running only four days a week, eight hours a day, to reduce vehicle inventories.

Nissan began operating some lines on four-day weeks in April and moved all production to the schedule in October.

A spokesman for Nissan’s U.S. manufacturing operations said Wednesday, January 14, that that schedule will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Nissan and Toyota Motor Corp. have been studying production cuts in light of crashing U.S. industry sales.

A spokesman for Toyota’s North American manufacturing headquarters in Erlanger, Kentucky, said Toyota could scratch more production days during the first quarter.

Filed by Lindsay Chappell of Automotive News, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

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