The French agri-food giant Danone, whose sales are battered by the Covid-19 pandemic, announced on Monday that it wanted to cut up to 2,000 positions in its headquarters in France and abroad in order to "simplify" its organization.
The French agri-food giant Danone, whose sales are battered by the Covid-19 pandemic, announced on Monday that it wanted to cut up to 2,000 positions in its headquarters in France and abroad in order to "simplify" its organization and resume growth .
"In France, it will be 400 to 500 people", "mainly directors, managers", who will be affected by these job cuts, Danone CEO Emmanuel Faber told AFP.
The group targets savings of one billion euros by 2023
The staff reductions will concern "all the structures of joint teams which are above the countries", such as "our headquarters in Amsterdam, Singapore, Paris", he detailed, stressing that this plan, called "Local First" aimed to "restore power at the local level" to the countries in which Danone operates.
The group expects "a decrease in its general and administrative expenses of 700 million euros, representing about 20% of the structural costs of the company", it is reported in a press release.
Danone is also relying on "new sources of industrial productivity making it possible to reduce the cost of products sold by 300 million euros", he added.
These include "accelerating digitization", the robotization of factories, said Mr. Faber, going from "half a dozen highly digitized factories" to 40 in 2023. In total, the group aims therefore a billion euros in savings by 2023.