Danone will cut 1,850 jobs worldwide
The Local First plan is supposed to generate savings and increase the profitability of the group of 100,000 employees.
REUTERS - Christian Hartmann
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Danone intends to cut a total of 1,850 jobs worldwide, including 450 in France over two years, in 2021 and 2022. The French agri-food giant is partly implementing the social plan called Local First that Emmanuel Faber, the ex-CEO of the group, had presented last November.
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Before being
ousted under pressure from
disgruntled
shareholders
, the boss of Danone had planned to cut up to 2,000 jobs worldwide, including nearly 500 in France, in order to save a billion euros on the horizon 2023. The Local First plan, second version, provides for 150 fewer layoffs.
If they had disowned Emmanuel Faber, the shareholders had not rejected his Local First plan.
They criticized him above all for his strategy, responsible according to them, for the fall in Danone's stock market price compared to its competitors, such as Nestlé and Unilever.
There was also a drop in sales of Evian, Volvic and Badois mineral waters which generated, apart from the pandemic, the group's largest profits and which were severely affected by the closure of restaurants and the cessation of tourism.
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Read also: The Covid-19 causes the elimination of more than 1,500 jobs at Danone
In addition to the job cuts, the new Local First plan also plans to change the current structure of the group.
It is based on three major businesses: dairy and plant-based products, specialized nutrition and the water sector.
Instead, there would be a reorganization by geographical areas which, the group hopes, should give more autonomy to the countries where Danone is established and a better concentration of resources on promising axes.
Negotiations have been initiated with the unions, in France in particular, on the establishment of a job protection plan, with a period of voluntary service.
They should “be
spread over several months
”.
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