In an effort to streamline operations three years after absorbing thousands of employees from the purchase of its largest bottler, Coca-Cola plans to lay off around 750 people in the coming months across the country.
About one-fourth of those cuts — 180 or so people — will be in Atlanta, the company said Wednesday.
“These changes are the next step in evolving our organization so that we’re focused on our highest-value opportunities to grow the business and make it easier for our people to get work done,” Scott Williamson, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based beverage giant, said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Williamson added that the cuts represent 1 percent of Coca-Cola’s 75,000 employees in North America, which consists of the United States and Canada.
As layoffs go, the cuts are small compared to much deeper staff reductions at major corporations in the past year. Computer giant Hewlett Packard slashed 27,000 jobs in 2012 while Hostess Brands announced layoffs of 18,500 staffers this past November. Coca-Cola rival Pepsi said in February 2012 that it planned to reduce its global workforce by 3 percent — about 8,700 — by 2014.
Exactly when Coca-Cola’s cuts will take place is unknown, but the company said it would be sooner than later. The eliminated positions will be across the board with no particular division taking the brunt of the reductions.
The employees will be able to apply for a limited number of open positions at the company. For those who leave, Coca-Cola plans to offer severance packages.
The job cuts come as Coca-Cola has seen sales in non-carbonated drinks soar over the past two years, while volume of its mainstays, such as regular Coke and Diet Coke, has been flat in North America. The company and the beverage industry also have come under intense scrutiny over the past few years by municipalities — most notably New York City — that want to reduce consumption of sodas, which they say is a major contributor to obesity and health care costs.
Williamson insisted that the job eliminations are not a restructuring or a cost-cutting move based on any business challenges. Rather, he said, the goal is to reduce redundancies at the company and eliminate inefficiencies to make Coca-Cola leaner.
In a February memo to employees, the company said it is paring down its divisions from seven to three and identified its food service operations as a model for how it wants to function.
Economist Tim Mescon said he is not surprised that Coca-Cola is still trimming staff three years after the company acquired the North American operations of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Enterprises, the brand’s largest bottler. Coca-Cola paid $12.3 billion for the operations in 2010.
That acquisition added about 70,000 employees to the company’s payrolls, including staff who were doing similar jobs. Coca-Cola’s intent in buying CCE’s North American operations was to save money by reducing what it saw as inefficiencies in the bottling system.
“What we sometimes forget is that when companies are on an investment roll, they look for efficient ways to be more productive,” said Mescon, president of Columbus State University.
John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest, said the changes appear to be modest. Sicher noted that sources told him the moves were about getting more Coca-Cola staffers in front of customers and that the reductions will not impact bottlers or service to customers.
But, he added, the changes could mean some facilities, including bottling plants, would be closed.
Though it is not directly related, Coca-Cola announced earlier this month that it was closing its Stockton Boulevard production plant in Sacramento, Calif. The plant employs 60 people, though a company spokesman told news agencies there that many could find jobs among the 250 openings the company has in the area.
Coca-Cola’s current cuts are far different from the company’s global restructuring in 2000, which resulted in 5,200 job eliminations.
