Coca-Cola could cut 2,000 jobs

Coca Cola is planning to cut 1,000-2,000 worldwide jobs in the next few weeks as part of its $3bn cost-cutting programme.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Coca Cola announced its plans for major cost-cutting after a 14% drop in its third-quarter profit.

The company will send job-cut notices to North American staff by 8 January 2015, with international employees given a timeline by 15 January.

Coca Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta and global regional offices will be impacted significantly, where close to 10% of corporate staff could lose their jobs.

The Wall Street Journal further reported that the company’s bottling and distribution divisions, which account for about 85% of its more than 130,000 employees, will be mostly out of the firing line for now.

Stockwise Daily reported that this is expected to be the largest layoff announcement by the Coca-Cola in the past 15 years, with the company following a strict internal operations budget. Sources report that one among several planned measures include disconnecting the voicemail feature on phones in its headquarters, which will help in saving almost $100,000, and implementing stricter budget control over managers.

As well as cutting jobs, the company is also planning to reduce executive perks such as limousine service and expensive Christmas parties for Wall Street analysts, sources familiar with the matter said.

As cited in Reuters, a spokeswoman from the company said that employees had been informed about the impact on jobs due to restructuring. However, she did not confirm the expected number of job cuts.

Although the company announced the cost-cutting to be around $1bn in February, it raised the target to $3bn in October by 2019.