OCTOBER 28, 2024 — PEPSICO ABRUPTLY CLOSES CHICAGO PLANT WITH LAYOFFS
PepsiCo is permanently closing its 51st Street bottling facility in Chicago, Illinois, without prior notice.
The closure will impact 131 Chicago employees.
A company spokesperson said, "This is a more than 60-year-old building with physical limitations. Our top priority is to support our employees during this transition, and our commitment to serve Chicagoland remains strong. Our plans meet applicable legal requirements, and we will actively work with Union leadership on the details related to the closure."
Along with the complete closure of its Chicago bottling plant, the company will close three other plants, impacting 136 employees in Cincinnati, Ohio; 127 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and fewer than 50 in Atlanta, Georgia.
APRIL 9, 2024 — QUAKER DIVISION PLANT CLOSURE WITH MASS LAYOFF OF 510 EMPLOYEES
Quaker Oats has announced its plans to shut its Danville, Illinois facility on June 8, 2024, and lay off 510 employees.
A Quaker spokesperson noted “The Quaker Oats Company announces that we are permanently closing our facility in Danville, IL. Following the Quaker recall in December 2023, we paused production at the facility. After a detailed review, we determined that meeting our future manufacturing needs would require an extended closure for enhancements and modernization. In order to continue the timely delivery of Quaker products trusted by consumers since 1877, we determined production would need to permanently shift to other facilities. We do not make this decision lightly and recognize the impact it will have on our employees, their families, and the Danville community. We have notified our workforce and are working closely with our employees and local community officials to provide a supportive transition.”
DECEMBER 5, 2022 — HUNDREDS TARGETED FOR LAYOFFS
The company has announced that it will be laying off hundreds of workers located at the headquarters of its North American snacks and beverages divisions.
The cuts will affect the company’s North American beverage business, which is based in Purchase, New York, and its North America snacks and packaged-foods business, which has headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, and Plano, Texas.
According to a company statement, “The layoffs were intended to simplify the organization so we can operate more efficiently. The cuts will be heavier in the beverage business because the snacks unit already has trimmed positions with a voluntary retirement program.”
APRIL 17, 2022 — BARRINGTON, ILLINOIS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FACILITY CLOSING
The company announced its intention to close its research and development facility in Barrington, Illinois, by the end of June 2022. The closing will impact 78 employees with the remaining 212 workers being transferred to other locations.
According to a company spokesperson, “PepsiCo has made the difficult decision to close the Barrington, Ill., R&D site. The expectation is for the site to be fully closed in June 2022. A vast majority of the roles will be moving to our three key hubs: Chicago’s Old Post Office; Plano, Texas; and Valhalla, NY.”
FEBRUARY 15, 2019 — WITH A NEW CHAIRMAN AND CEO, PEPSICO TELEGRAPHS A CONTINUING RESTRUCTURING PROGRAM
The handwriting is definitely on the wall as Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo, the iconic drinks and snack foods company, used their Fourth Quarter earnings call to telegraph a massive $2.5 billion restructuring program in the coming years that will result in closed plants and a major reduction in force. No specific closures or layoffs were announced at this time. However, there will be a share buy back to please the Wall Street Wizards.
“Contributing to the productivity goal are expected savings from certain restructuring actions that are intended to enable the Company to leverage new technology and business models to further simplify, harmonize and automate processes; re-engineer our go-to-market and information systems, including deploying the right automation for each market; simplify our organization and optimize our manufacturing and supply chain footprint.”
According to Ramon Laguarta, the new Chairman, President & CEO …
“Our productivity programs will be guided by a set of universally applied principles, namely: achieving local affordability; simplifying and standardizing processes; collaborating across functions rather than optimizing within functions to achieve lowest cost end-to-end processes; relentlessly automating and merging the best of our optimized business models with the best new thinking and technologies. Just as importantly, we're also adopting a philosophy that recognizes that not all the capabilities or costs are equal, so we'll be very discriminating in where we need to pay for best-in-class or we should pay for just good enough. These principles will be applied across the entire cost structure, from labor to discretionary costs, and advertising and marketing, to fixed assets.”
FEBRUARY 20, 2018 — Original post…
Pepsico announced that they will be laying off less than one percent of their 110,000 employees or up to 1100 workers if you do the math. This is said to be part of a previously-announced and ongoing productivity program.
Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi was quick to defend the Pepsico's 2017 reported results, saying, "These are impressive results, particularly in light of the challenges posed by global megatrends impacting our industry from macroeconomic and political volatility to the continued rebalancing of the economic world, to shifting consumer preferences and increasing demand for healthier products, the disruption of retail costs by the rapid growth of e-commerce and the blurring of channel lines."
Pepsico posted a loss of $710 million in the three months ending Dec. 30, 2017 -- but was majorly impacted by the Trump tax reform which led to a $2.5 billion provisional net tax expense. Whether or not Pepsico chooses to repatriate future money from abroad and take advantage of lowered taxes remains to be seen.
While the Trump tax proposal will result in a lower tax rate on U.S. earnings, it does impose a one-time mandatory tax on international accumulated earnings that existed at the end of 2017 -- regardless of whether or not an entity decides to repatriate those earnings from abroad.
According to The Vice Chairman and CFO, "In the fourth quarter of 2017, we recorded a one-time $2.5 billion provisional net tax expense which reflects a portion of the total $4 billion liability on accumulated earnings which is expected to be paid out over eight years starting in 2019.
Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?