The other 'Big 3': Japanese car giants caught in sales skid, too

TORRANCE, Calif. -- Though he's 5,400 miles from Tokyo, the chef at the Depot restaurant follows automotive economics in Asia as closely as he monitors the crispness of the Thai shrimp.

The eatery still attracts a respectable lunch crowd, but the heady days of parties are over for now.

"There's a tightening of the belts, but we're not losing our shirt," says owner and chef Michael Shafer. "It's a very cautious market right now."

The recession is battering Nippon's automakers by:

•Socking their sales nearly as hard as U.S. automakers' sales. They've been unable to float above the trouble with more sales of low-cost, high-mileage small cars as in some past economic turndowns.

•Depressing the dollar's value against the yen. That squeezes profits on sales transacted in U.S. dollars and makes their Japanese-built models less price competitive. The dollar is down 5.8% from a year ago vs. the yen; 15.9% in the past two years.

•Threatening the labor-cost advantage of their non-union U.S. factories. Ford Motor has won concessions from the United Auto Workers it says will put its costs on par with Toyota's U.S. workers. GM and Chrysler are negotiating similar deals mandated by their federal loans.

•Straining Toyota's and Honda's traditional policies against laying off permanent workers. That puts them at a disadvantage to U.S. companies that have jettisoned tens of thousands. Nissan doesn't stand by a no-layoff pledge, but it hasn't laid off any of its permanent factory force.

Toyota even discussed loan aid with the Japanese government, though the company is quick to draw a distinction with the U.S. government loans to GM and Chrysler. The Japanese discussion, it says, focuses on financing loans for potential car buyers, not for company operating funds.