🔗 Share this article

Corporate Image

Global consumer goods leader Nestlé announced it will cut sixteen thousand positions within the coming 24 months, as the recently appointed chief executive the company's fresh leader drives a strategy to focus on products offering the “most lucrative outcomes”.

This multinational corporation has to “adapt more quickly” to stay aligned with a changing world and adopt a “results-oriented culture” that does not accept ceding ground to competitors, the executive stated.

He replaced ex-chief executive Laurent Freixe, who was terminated in September.

These workforce reductions were revealed on Thursday as Nestlé shared stronger performance metrics for the initial three quarters of 2025, with higher revenue across its key product lines, encompassing coffee and sweets.

The biggest packaged food and drink company, this industry leader owns a multitude of labels, among them Nescafé, KitKat and Maggi.

Nestlé aims to remove twelve thousand professional positions on top of 4,000 further jobs across the board over the coming 24 months, it announced publicly.

These job cuts will save the corporation approximately 1bn SFr (£940m) per annum as a component of an continuous efficiency drive, it stated.

Its equity price rose seven and a half percent soon after its performance report and job cuts were announced.

The CEO said: “We are building a culture that embraces a results-driven attitude, that will not abide market share declines, and where achievement is incentivized... The marketplace is evolving, and the company requires accelerated transformation.”

The restructuring would include “tough but required choices to reduce headcount,” he said.

Equity analyst Diana Radu said the report suggested that the new CEO wants to “enhance clarity to sectors that were formerly less clear in its expense reduction initiatives.”

The job cuts, she explained, appear to be an effort to “reset expectations and rebuild investor confidence through concrete measures.”

The former CEO was terminated by Nestlé in early September subsequent to an inquiry into whistleblower allegations that he failed to report a private liaison with a junior employee.

The company's outgoing chair Paul Bulcke moved up his departure date and resigned in the identical period.

It was reported at the period that investors attributed responsibility to the outgoing leader for the company's ongoing problems.

In the prior year, an inquiry discovered Nestlé baby food products available in emerging markets had excessive amounts of sugar.

The study, by a Swiss NGO and the International Baby Food Action Network, found that in many cases, the identical items available in affluent markets had zero additional sweeteners.

• Nestlé operates hundreds of brands globally.
• Layoffs will impact 16,000 workers over the next two years.
• Cost reductions are anticipated to amount to CHF 1 billion annually.
• Equity increased significantly following the announcement.