Paris (AFP)
The agri-food giant Danone plans to cut 1,850 jobs worldwide, including 458 in France as part of its reorganization project announced in November, he said in a statement on Thursday.
This is a little less than the "up to 2,000 job cuts", including 400 to 500 in France and mainly among the management, which had been mentioned during the presentation of this plan by the former CEO Emmanuel Faber .
The board of directors, which ousted Mr. Faber in mid-March amid a crisis of mistrust of some of the shareholders, had not disowned this plan called "Local First", which should increase profitability and generate savings by removing hierarchical strata in the group of 100,000 employees.
It must also put an end to a structure which brought out three major businesses (Dairy and plant-based products, Specialized nutrition, Waters), in favor of an organization by geographical areas, in order to give more autonomy to the countries in which Danone operates.
“Local First” began to be detailed Tuesday and Wednesday to the group's staff representatives, indicates Danone France in its press release, specifying that the information-consultation procedure “should be spread over several months”.
Overall, the "project could result in the net loss of around 1,850 jobs worldwide, including 458 in France, in line with the estimates shared when the study was launched in November," it is reported.
In France, "the discussions will focus in particular on the implementation of a job protection plan with a period of voluntary service, the terms of which will be defined with our employee representative bodies," adds Danone.
"The implementation of this plan would be carried out gradually over several months in 2021 and 2022", adds Danone.
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