Report: Toyota's output seen down 25 percent
TOKYO (AP) — Toyota's domestic production in 2009 will likely drop by 25 percent from the previous year, hit by sinking demand amid a deepening global recession, a report said Monday.
Japan's No. 1 automaker expects to roll out three million vehicles at the parent level — excluding subsidiaries and affiliates — down from four million units last year, Japan's top-selling newspaper Yomiuri said, citing an unnamed senior official.
Keisuke Kirimoto, a spokesman for Toyota Motor Corp., said the company's domestic output at the parent level came at four million in 2008, but declined to confirm the 2009 projection. He did not elaborate further.
The Japanese auto giant has been hammered by the collapse in global demand for cars and expects to suffer its first operating loss in 70 years in the current fiscal year ending March 2009. To weather the global downturn, Toyota is slashing the number of temporary workers it employs.
The job cuts so far have not affected Toyota's 316,000 full-time workers worldwide. But as the global recession prolongs, Japan's top business daily, the Nikkei, said last week Toyota may cut full-time employees to survive the economic downturn.
If Toyota's domestic production falls below three million units at the parent level, it would mark the weakest production since 1979 when its output came at 2.99 million, the Yomiuri said Monday.
Toyota has been booming in recent years, but it has been hit hard by the recent economic chill. The U.S. financial crisis sent auto demand plunging last year in the key North American market.
Posts
