ATLANTA — Coca-Cola said Tuesday it will be cutting 1,200 jobs later this year as part of an expanded cost-cutting program.
Coca-Cola President James Quincey, who takes over as chief executive of the Atlanta company on May 1, announced the job cuts during the company’s first-quarter earnings call with investors.
“While these changes are difficult, they will allow us to do fewer things” more effectively, said Quincey, who is replacing long-time CEO Muhtar Kent.
Quincey said the job cuts will begin in the second half of 2017 and extend into 2018. He said the job cuts will be part of the company’s efforts to boost savings by about $800 million by 2019 through job cuts, reduced marketing spending, and restructuring some of its operations.
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Including the new cost-cutting efforts, Quincey said the company now expects to increase savings from its overall “productivity” plan to result in $3.8 billion in lower costs in coming years, rather than a previously announced total of $3 billion.
No details were immediately available on how the job cuts would affect employment at Coca-Cola’s headquarters.
Coca-Cola has 100,300 employees worldwide, including 57,300 in North America.
The last time Coca-Cola announced big job reductions was in early 2015, when the company said it would cut up to 1,800 jobs, including about 500 at its Atlanta headquarters. The company had about 8,900 people at its midtown Atlanta office at the time, and 130,600 around the world.
Tuesday, Coca-Cola reported big drops in both revenue and profits in the first quarter, mostly due to its ongoing efforts to re-tool its bottling and other operations.
Coca-Cola’s revenue declined 11 percent in the first quarter, to $9.1 billion from $10.3 billion a year earlier.
First quarter profit declined 21 percent, to almost $1.18 billion from $1.48 billion a year earlier.
Tuesday’s financial report mostly showed flat or slightly higher financial results when the effect of the restructuring efforts were removed, the company said.