Coca Cola will cut 2,200 employees in its global workforce as part of previously announced restructuring plans that have been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve been challenging legacy ways of doing business and the pandemic helped us realize we could be bolder in our efforts,” Coke Chairman and CEO James Quincey said during an earnings call in October.
A spokesperson for the company told FOX Business the job cuts will come through a combination of voluntary buyouts and involuntary layoffs.
The restructuring will impact about 1,200 roles in the United States, with roughly 500 of the cuts coming from metro Atlanta. The move will cost between $350 million and $550 million.
The spokesperson did not specify how many employees would be affected in individual operating units and did not disclose the number of employees who have accepted the company’s voluntary separation program. In August, Coca Cola offered voluntary separation packages to about 4,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada.
The move comes after Coke said in October that it would be reducing its brands by half to 200. It shed multiple slow-selling brands this year, including Tab, Zico coconut water, Diet Coke Fiesty Cherry and Odwalla juices.
The company said it will use the savings to invest in growing brands like Minute Maid and Simply juices and fund the launch of new products like Topo Chico Hard Seltzer, Coca-Cola Energy and Aha sparkling water. Coke is also reducing its business segments from 17 to nine.
The restructuring will not impact Coke’s bottling operations, which are mostly independent. The company’s total global headcount as of the end of 2019 was 86,200.
