The company is facing intense pressure to boost growth.
Unilever, the London-based consumer goods company that owns the rights to numerous popular household brands like Dove, Ben & Jerry’s, Hellman’s, and Vaseline, has recently been under intense pressure from its shareholders. In 2021, Unilever’s stock value dropped by about 10%, and several recent bids at major brand acquisitions have failed to manifest, hammering the value even further. Shareholders are demanding growth, which means Unilever needs to make some cutbacks.
Unilever announced today that they would be slashing approximately 1,500 managerial positions from its global workforce of roughly 149,000. That account for about 15% of senior managerial staff and 5% of junior managerial staff. To clarify, these cuts are only for managerial positions; no factory workers are being laid off.
The reason for these cuts is to aid Unilever in simplifying their business proceedings. Going forward, the company will be dividing its dealings into five separate units, each with its own secondary president: Beauty and Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care, Nutrition, and Ice Cream.
Unilever is cutting 1,500 management jobs around the world as the consumer goods giant comes under intense pressure from shareholders to boost growth https://t.co/IJgeCxz1E9
— CNN (@CNN) January 25, 2022
Unilever CEO Alan Jope hopes that this restructuring bid will allow the company 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,” he added in a statement.
At the beginning of trading this morning, Unilever lost 1% of its value, but that’s against a 10% boost in value that came yesterday on the news that prolific investor and Wendy’s chairman Nelson Peltz had purchased a large stake in the company.
