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One of Toyota Motor Corp.'s most remarkable achievements is that it has not laid off any of its permanent workers in more than half a century.

But the Japanese automaker may be about to relinquish that proud tradition. Japan's biggest business newspaper, the Nikkei, reported Friday that Toyota was considering cutting 1,000 jobs in Britain and the United States.

Other Japanese papers have suggested even bigger job cuts may be announced as Toyota moves to reduce its output and costs in response to plunging demand for vehicles worldwide.

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GENEVA -- BMW will reduce its work force by more than 1,000 additional jobs this year through natural attrition, the German car maker's chief executive said Tuesday.

Norbert Reithofer said further reductions in head count would depend on market conditions during 2009. The company had 100,000 employees at the end of last year, after some 4,000 took advantage of a buyout offer and a further 3,500 left through natural turnover and were not replaced.

"2009 will be a very difficult year for our industry," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Geneva auto show

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FRANKFURT -- German carmaker Daimler AG said Friday its Mercedes Benz Cars division's worldwide sales fell 25 percent in February, as the deepening economic downturn hurt demand.

The Stuttgart-based company said sales in February fell to 72,000 cars from 96,800 in the same month of 2008.

The division's brands include Mercedes, Smart and Maybach.

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FRANKFURT -- German automaker BMW AG said Monday its worldwide car sales fell 24 percent in February as the economic crisis pinched demand.

The Munich-based company said it sold a total of 80,453 cars for the month compared with 106,368 cars in February 2008.

BMW's brands include Mini, Rolls Royce and BMW sports and luxury cars.

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Mazda Motor Corp., burdened with the second-worst credit rating among Japan's carmakers and a 62 percent surge in short-term borrowing this fiscal year, plans to apply for government aid as it consumes cash.

"We can't sell bonds right now," said Nobuyoshi Tochio, general manager of Mazda's financial services division.

"The market isn't functioning. Conditions are really bad."

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I wonder if the Mazda corp. will get the rash of negative press and words from the southern senators that GM and Chrysler got when they asked the govt. for a loan

GMGirl wrote:I wonder if the Mazda corp. will get the rash of negative press and words from the southern senators that GM and Chrysler got when they asked the govt. for a loan

Of course not, the Japanese government supports its business and workers unlike our Republicant Congress and Senators! And OUR representatives will leave that issue alone if possible so they don't have to answer the question WHY? They don't want to tell you it is because they want to take this opportunity to break the Unions, and they don't want to tell you how much support they have thrown the way of the imports, selling out their own country.