Unilever To Cut 8,000 More Jobs

Anglo-Dutch food giant Unilever will slash 8,000 more jobs and close 30 plants as it integrates the recently acquired Bestfoods into its operations, a spokesman said Friday.

The 8,000 jobs are in addition to 25,000 jobs the consumer products maker said in February it will cut over five years to recover from a slump in profits. The combined cut of 33,000 positions represents around 11% of Unilever’s worldwide work force of 295,000 people.

Unilever’s shares rose 3.7% to 63.80 euros ($56.80) on the Amsterdam exchange. The job cuts are part of the company’s plans to reduce the number of core brands by 75% to focus on its 400 leading products.

Spokesman Tom Gordijn said the job losses will be at Bestfoods production sites in North America, Latin America and, to a lesser extent, in Europe. He declined to give specific locations for the factories slated for closure. Mr. Gordijn said Unilever expected annual costs savings of $750 million from the overall reduction in jobs.

Unilever struck a deal for Bestfoods, the Englewood, N.J.-based owner of the Hellmann’s, Mazola, Knorr and Mueller’s brands, in June 2000. It later acquired Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Slimfast foods. The purchases cost more than $28 billion and made Unilever one of the largest food companies in the world.

Unilever said that by the first quarter of this year it had already slashed 8,000 positions of the previously announced 25,000 jobs. In the January-March period, Unilever said its net profit dropped 61% to 254 million euros ($226 million) from 649 million euros in 2000. But the decline reflected one time items associated with its purchases last year. Earnings before exceptional items slipped 4% to 702 million euros from 733 million euros a year ago, and those results were slightly ahead of analysts’ forecasts. Sales jumped 20% to 12.7 billion euro ($17.6 billion), from 10.6 billion euros a year earlier.