Nestlé has started to roll out job cuts in Europe as part of the 16,000-cull announced by CEO Philipp Navratil in October.
The Switzerland-headquartered group, the world’s largest food and drinks maker, has confirmed the planned job cuts in the UK and France with Just Food but has not yet clarified the numbers put forward by various media reports in Germany, Spain and Italy.
Taken together, the total impact is more than 1,400 so far across the five countries.
Navratil revealed in October he planned to slash Nestlé’s workforce after only taking the top job a month earlier. A veteran at the KitKat and Nescafé brand owner, he replaced another long-time Nestlé stalwart Laurent Freixe, who left the business after breaching code-of-conduct rules.
The job losses would be implemented over the next two years, including 12,000 white-collar workers across the group, and 4,000 in manufacturing,” Navratil said at the time as part of a plan to increase annual savings to SFr1bn ($1.2bn) by the end of 2027.
In France, 180 positions will be chopped in R&D and “support functions”, Nestlé confirmed in what it described as a “tense agri-food market marked by pressure on purchasing power, rising production costs and increased competition”.
Its R&D facilities in Tours and Lisieux will be affected, Nestlé said in a statement, adding the cuts “aim to simplify and digitise the organisation, strengthen agility and efficiency, and adapt structures to the evolution of the business portfolio, in order to gain competitiveness and support investments”.
Nestlé is now “entering an information and consultation phase with employee representatives” in France as it seeks to “gradually” start the job cuts in 2027.
The company added the downsizing impact could be reduced to around 75 to 100 jobs based on current vacancies, newly created positions, transfers within the business and voluntary retirements.
For the UK, Nestlé did not confirm the number of planned cuts or locations but the GMB union put the figure at “more than” 450.
The union said in a statement the “majority” of the UK jobs would go among “staff and managers” at Nestlé facilities in York and Gatwick, adding that GMB will work “closely with members and the company to ease the pain of these cuts as much as possible”.
Meanwhile, a Nestlé spokesperson for the UK said: “We said in 2025 that we will reduce our global workforce by 16,000 roles and that process is ongoing.
“As always, we will manage any changes in the right way and in consultation with our people. Any proposed changes will always be shared with those affected first and we have no further update to give at this time.”
