Cans taken out for Coke Coca-Cola Co. drink. moving forward on the production line.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Coca-Cola is cutting about 2,200 jobs in its global workforce as part of a broader restructuring plan accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.
In the United States, Coke uses layoffs and buyouts to eliminate about 1,200 jobs, making up about 12% of the workforce in its home market. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
At the end of 2019, the Atlanta-based company had 86,200 global employees. But the pandemic hit his income and raised expenses for the drink giant. About half of its sales are usually from consumers drinking drinks away from home. In the third quarter, its total sales slipped 9%.
Coke has addressed the crisis by accelerating its plans to restructure its business and reduce its portfolio. It has stopped drinks like Tab and its Odwalla brand that are not selling well and offer little opportunity for growth. The company plans to build new operational units with a focus on the regional and local level that will work closely with five global marketing leadership teams, broken down by gender.
Part of its reorganization involves job cuts. In August, Coke said it would provide voluntary layoff packages to 4,000 employees in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.
In total, Coke plans to spend $ 350 million to $ 550 million on separation costs. The redundancy does not include the bottle workers.
Shares of Coke, which has a market value of $ 230 billion, rose less than 1% in afternoon trading. The stock is down 3% so far in 2020.