Coca-Cola to cut 1,600-1,800 jobs

[NEW YORK] US soda giant Coca-Cola plans to cut 1,600-1,800 jobs in a cost-saving move, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

Coca-Cola, which has struggled to grow sales, said the cuts would come from its corporate headquarters, as well as from its North American and international divisions. The company began notifying employees Thursday.

"As part of our recently announced, multi-year productivity initiatives, we are redesigning our operating model to streamline and simplify our structure and accelerate the growth of our global business," the spokeswoman said in an email message.

"As we have acknowledged previously, this redesign work will result in impacts to jobs across our global operations." Coca-Cola has struggled with weak sales in its home US market and beyond amid rising health concerns on the link between soda and obesity and other health ills. Global sales were down two percent at US$35.1 billion for the first nine of months of 2014.

The company in March announced it was streamlining its global operations and expected US$3 billion in annual savings by 2019. It said the moves would enable it to keep to its long-term growth target of high single-digit earnings-per-share growth.

Coca-Cola had 130,600 employees globally at the end of 2013.

AFP