Nissan said that due to falling demand for its vehicles, it will temporarily lay off 2,025 workers at its plants in Barcelona and Montcada in northeastern Spain.
The company has informed workers' representatives of the plan, which would affect factory workers at the two plants on a rotating basis between September and the end of the year, a company spokeswoman said.
The lay offs would follow the sacking of 698 people in July as part of a world restructuring of Nissan's operations amid the global economic slowdown.
The company, Japan's third largest automaker, had originally planned to cut 1,680 employees at its factories in northeastern Spain but backtracked in the face of noisy protests by workers and pressure from local authorities.
New car sales in Spain plunged a record 28% last year, as the country slumped into its first recession in 15 years, due to the global credit crunch worsening a correction already underway in its key property sector.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009