Unilever will cut back thousands of management-level jobs in an effort to restructure, the consumer goods giant announced Tuesday.
Roughly 1,500 positions will be cut, signifying a 15% loss of upper-management employees and a 5% loss of junior-management employees, Unilever said in a statement, adding that factory jobs will be unaffected.
“Changes will be subject to consultation,” the press release said. “We do not expect factory teams to be impacted by these changes.”
The layoffs from the London-based company, which owns brands such as Ben & Jerry’s and Dove, come as part of a plan to help make “changes to its organizational model” in an effort to make the company “simpler” and “category-focused,” the press release added.
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The company employs 149,000 people globally, according to ABC News, which also reported that Unilever was facing backlash from its investors this month following a bid for the consumer health unit of GSK that was rejected.
“Our new organizational model has been developed over the last year and is designed to continue the step-up we are seeing in the performance of our business,” said Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever.
The restructuring of the company will consist of five so-called business groups labeled “Beauty & Wellbeing,” “Personal Care,” “Home Care,” “Nutrition,” and “Ice Cream.” Each of these categories will be responsible for expanding on its “strategy, growth, and profit” worldwide, Unilever said.
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“Moving to five category-focused Business Groups will enable us to be more responsive to consumer and channel trends, with crystal-clear accountability for delivery. Growth remains our top priority and these changes will underpin our pursuit of this,” the statement said.
The leadership changes made to the company will go into effect on April 1.
