Workforce

Coca-Cola Poised for Employee Buyouts

Nov. 9, 2022

Latest purge comes in advance of new North America unit president.

The Coca-Cola Co. intends to give an unspecified number of people four days to decide if they want to take buyouts.

According to an internal company memo first reported by Beverage Digest, Coca-Cola is instituting a “voluntary separation program” as part of an effort to pare its North American workforce. Targeted employees will have to decide between Nov. 14 and Nov. 18 if they want to take buyouts to leave the company by March 15, 2023.

The plan comes as Coca-Cola’s North America Operating Unit prepares for a new president, Jennifer Mann. In advance of taking the helm of the unit on Jan. 1, she has met with employees, customers and others in the Coke supply chain, trying to identify operational inefficiencies, according to Beverage Digest.

Coca-Cola eliminated more than 2,000 jobs as part of a global reorganization in 2020. The company had a strong recent quarter, beating expectations with year-over-year revenue growth of 10%.

About the Author

Pan Demetrakakes | Senior Editor

Pan has written about the food and beverage industry for more than 25 years. His areas of coverage have included formulations, processing, packaging, marketing and retailing. Pan worked for Food Processing Magazine for six years in the 1990s, where he was operations editor (his current role), touring dozens of food plants of every description. He has also worked for Packaging and Food & Beverage Packaging magazines, the latter as chief editor, during which he won three ASBPE awards. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in communications.