This article was last updated on December 12, 2023
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USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…Dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina is cutting more than 900 jobs in the Netherlands in a reorganization that will result in the loss of 1,800 jobs worldwide. This concerns jobs in almost all parts of the organization.
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‘Difficult But Necessary’ Steps
“Today is a tough day for FrieslandCampina,” says CEO Jan Derck van Karnebeek. “We are now announcing difficult but necessary steps to structurally reduce our costs. We realize that the announcement about job losses has a major impact on the people involved.”
Reasons Behind the Job Cuts
According to Van Karnebeek, profit margins in dairy are limited, and competition is fierce. “We have to be fit enough to compete on the global market and we now have too high costs for that. You can’t be too expensive.”
‘Big Shock’
Trade union CNV calls the job losses a major shock. “This creates a lot of uncertainty for employees,” says Henk Jongsma of CNV Vakmensen. “After the first announcement of the reorganization, we immediately entered into consultation with the management about a new social plan.”
Plans and Reactions
“It’s tough to hear that so many people are involved,” says Johan Folmer, chairman of the works council at FrieslandCampina. “Many colleagues have an unpleasant message at home before Christmas. And it is also difficult for those left behind at the company, who have to do the work with fewer people.” The works council will assess the plans in the coming weeks and then provide advice.
Profits Down
The reorganization should result in annual cost savings of 400 to 500 million euros by 2026. In the first half of this year, FrieslandCampina’s profit fell sharply to 8 million euros. In the first half of 2022, the profit was 139 million.
A total of almost 22,000 people work at FrieslandCampina, most of them in Europe. The company is a cooperative. The owners are approximately 15,000 dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. They also supply the milk that FrieslandCampina sells and uses to make baby food, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products.
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