Toyota offering US buyouts....Is Toyota losing it's mojo?

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Toyota Motor Corp., which lost market share for the first time in the U.S. in a dozen years in 2010, is offering incentives to white-collar staff to leave the company.
Toyota sent the offer to U.S. managers in its automotive operations and customer-service groups. About 629 people are eligible, Toyota said.
While not the first time the auto maker has offered buyouts to its white-collar staff, the move stands in contrast to Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., which have begun hiring again after shedding tens of thousands of jobs.
"This voluntary program is part of an ongoing process of evaluating our operations and aligning them with our future growth. It will allow for further restructuring and enable us to expand areas of responsibility and increase efficiency," the company said in a statement.
Toyota said it hasn't set a specific target for how many departures it seeks. Workers are eligible for $20,000 cash plus two weeks of pay for each year at the company and 10 weeks of additional salary.
Trade publication Automotive News first reported the buyouts.
The news came shortly after Toyota reported that its January U.S. sales rose 17% over last year and that it would launch a new media campaign this month, dubbed "Number 1 for A Reason."
The Japanese company also launched a raft of new customer incentives, including no-interest, five-year loans and $500 towards down payments on its Camry sedan. Toyota lost two points of market share in 2010 and suffered through a year-long struggle with recalls related to unintended acceleration.
Toyota's Bob Carter, who runs the Toyota brand sales in the U.S., has said the company will regain market share this year, in part by putting out new models, including a larger Prius and a redesigned Camry.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703445904576118471643582818.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

Gotta do what they gotta do.

 

some nice buyout options though. fawk.

 

thanks for not polluting the 1st gen section, OP.

 

Oh I don't know...resale values...Incentives coming for those looking to buy in the near future. I would wait on buying until the incentives begin appearing. Toyota is not used to being behind....They will do what they have to to recapture lost market share

 

No.

Offering 630 buyouts (notice this is OPTIONAL) is a far fucking cry from GM laying off tens of thousands of employees in a desperate bid not to go under, then going under anyway.

Toyota's sales were fine this past year, even with made-up-recall-gate.

I'm not the least bit worried about them.

 

Yea I agree. 630 people in a company this large is pretty uninteresting.

Nothing to see here .... Move along .... Move along. Lol.

 

These buyouts won't hurt resale value at all, and I doubt any more huge and uncharacteristic incentives will be coming because of Toyota's rough 2010. The problems Toyota faced was because it did become too much like Ford and GM, and the article quoted in the OP made an odd hidden assumption when it contrasted Toyota's buyouts with GM and Ford's strong hirings - doesn't mean Toyota is continuing to do the same stupid things. Might mean the exact opposite (which is what I believe), Toyota is going back to what made it strong, and GM and Ford are (predictably) falling back into the same problems that got them where they are now.

I agree 100%. Any incentives that Toyota offers is to help spur sales due to a slumpy economy, not because of anything they've done wrong or trying to makeup for their mistakes this past year. Doing these things would be way to reactive, and I think Toyota as a company has proven that it's much more pro-active than anything.

 

They have been doing this for at least 6 years. I have hired 2 "bought-out" engineers from Toyota. As folks get more senority, pay gets higher. Buy em' out, hire a new young engineer for a lot less.
Check the website for employment opportunities, lots of openings.

 

You don't seem understand how Auto sales work. If Toyota offers money back on new ones used ones are worth that much less. When someone can buy new at 0 interest what they would have to pay more interest on used. resale values suffer.

in fact people on this site already claim they would buy new rather than save $5000 on a used one. Perhaps asking $5k less is not such a stretch of logic.

 

According to Automotive News this is unprecedented in their history in the US.
"The move was the first time that Toyota has moved to cut workers at its U.S. sales and marketing operation and comes as the company struggles to restore momentum in the United States after a damaging series of safety recalls last year.
Toyota was the only major automaker to post a sales drop in 2010 and its sales gain of 17 percent in January only kept pace with a recovering U.S. auto market."

I would think a proud Toyota would admit this is not unusual and they are fine and have been doing this for years.

BTW I checked the website as you suggested...... there are 127 jobs NATIONALLY available for Toyota USA 41 in engineering--just sayin

https://tmm.taleo.net/careersection/10020/jobsearch.ftl?lang=en