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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Business
Emma Munbodh

Marmite and Dove maker Unilever to cut 1,500 jobs in huge global restructuring

The maker of Dove, Marmite and dozens more food and beauty brands Unilever has said it will cut around 1,500 jobs globally as part of a group-wide overhaul.

The restructuring will affect around 15% of senior management roles and around 5% of junior management positions.

All workers have now been placed on consultation, however the business confirmed factory teams are unaffected by the changes.

The company said it plans to "move away from its current matrix structure and will be organised around five distinct Business Groups: Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care, Nutrition, and Ice Cream."

The company has around 6,000 workers in the UK.

Chief executive, Alan Jope, Unilever, today said, "Our new organisational model has been developed over the last year and is designed to continue the step-up we are seeing in the performance of our business.

Unilever products include Domestos bleach, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Hellman’s mayonnaise (REUTERS)

"Moving to five category-focused Business Groups will enable us 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."

Unilever products include Domestos bleach, Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Hellman’s mayonnaise. It’s biggest rival is Procter and Gamble.

It comes after it lost a takeover bid to buy out GlaxoSmithKline's consumer healthcare division for £50billion this month. The company owns competitor brands such as Aquafresh toothpaste and Panadol painkillers.

GSK said its offer "fundamentally undervalued" the business - in which US drugs giant Pfizer owns a 32% stake.

The company today also announced several internal changes including a new President of Ice Cream, Matt Close.

On Tuesday, Royal Mail also revealed plans to cut 700 jobs as part of a push to reduce bureaucracy.

The postal service said cutting 700 management jobs would save the business around £40million every year - that's around £57,142 per manager.

Around £30million of that would come between April 2022 and April 2023.

However, there would be a one-off cost of £70million to make all the redundancies - which Royal Mail would pay before April this year.

The firm is now consulting on the move, which will involve unions Unite, CMA and CWU.

A Royal Mail statement said: "Our successful 'Day in the Life of' initiative has already reduced administration for frontline managers and allowed us to repurpose over one million annualised hours so that managers can spend more time focusing on their teams and customers.

"As a next step, subject to consultation, we intend to further simplify and streamline our operational structures to ensure an improved focus on local performance, and devolve more accountability and flexibility to frontline operational managers."

Royal Mail chairman Keith Williams said: "The past few months have demonstrated that the challenge for Royal Mail is to improve both quality and efficiency.

"Looking forwards, the delivery of our transformation and modernisation plans remain incredibly important in light of the fast‐paced change we are seeing and ongoing inflationary pressures."

The news comes as Royal Mail warns of disruption at ten of its delivery offices in the UK as it continues to be hit by staff absences.

A Royal Mail statement today said staff absences peaked at around 12% of its workforce in January - 15,000 people in total.

It added: "This has resulted in increased costs and impacted quality of service in some areas of the country. We are providing targeted support to the local offices most affected by elevated absence."

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