Coca-Cola on Monday said that during the next few months it will cut up to 350 management positions, most of them in its Atlanta headquarters.
The beverage giant is making the cuts from its North American business unit, which has about 8,000 employees overall, as part of ongoing changes in the shape of the business, according to Kent Landers, company spokesman.
The company hasn’t stopped hiring, he said.
Instead, the changes include eliminating some jobs, as well as re-orienting others while adding new jobs “to meet the accelerated growth agenda of our business.”
About a year ago, the company announced plans to slash 1,200 positions from its corporate divisions, and that trimming is largely complete. When announced, the company said those moves were aimed at saving about $800 million a year.
The cuts announced Monday are not part of that previous announcement.
However, they reflect a larger strategic shift in the business, Landers said. “We have been implementing a new operating model that returns ownership of our bottling system to local operators, increases our productivity and creates a performance-driven culture to accelerate the growth of our total beverage business in the United States and globally.”
The company said it is providing outplacement help to those who are losing their jobs.
Not counting bottlers, Coca-Cola has about 5,000 employees in Georgia, the vast majority in Atlanta.
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