Unilever is set to cut up to 3,200 office jobs in Europe as part of its wider cost-cutting “productivity programme”.
The Ben & Jerry’s ice cream manufacturer confirmed it is in a consultation process with 7,500 global employees whose roles will be affected by a programme the company announced in March, through which it aims to cut costs by €800m ($867.8m) between now and 2027.
Unilever told senior executives on Wednesday (10 July) it was expecting a net reduction of between 3,000 and 3,200 roles in Europe by the end of 2025, according to details of a company-wide call shared with The Financial Times.
A Unilever spokesperson told Just Food: “We recognise the significant anxiety that these proposals are causing amongst our people. We are committed to supporting everyone through these changes, as we go through the consultation process.”
“These measures mean the biggest job cuts in Unilever for decades,” Hermann Soggeberg, head of Unilever’s European Works Council said in a letter to staff seen by Reuters.
Soggeberg reportedly said it was inaccurate to call the cuts a “productivity programme” as people who had worked and been productive were now set to lose their livelihoods.
The Knorr soup maker announced its cost-saving initiative alongside plans to separate its ice cream business from the company earlier this year.
In a statement, Unilever, which is the world’s largest producer of ice cream, said demerging the assets into a listed company was “the most likely separation route”.
The company said the separation would make the FMCG giant “a standalone, more focused business”, that will have more “operational and financial flexibility”.
In the company’s opening quarter results for 2024, volumes from Unilever’s nutrition division, which includes brands such as Marmite spread and Colman’s mustard, fell 0.4%.
Underlying sales for its nutrition unit grew 3.7% in the first quarter. Divisional turnover for the period was flat on the previous quarter at €3.4bn.
Meanwhile, Unilever’s ice cream unit saw its underlying sales grow 2.3% but volumes declined 0.9%. Annual turnover was up 50% on the previous quarter, at €1.8bn.
