By Coca-Cola announced on Friday a workforce restructuring plan that will include voluntary job cuts.
Shares of the beverage giant, which has a market value of $210 billion, rose 1% in premarket trading, as the stock has fallen 12% this year.
Coke said it will offer voluntary layoff packages to employees who qualify, starting with about 4,000 workers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico who were hired on or before Sept. 1, 2017. The voluntary buyouts are expected to limit the number of involuntary job cuts that will follow.
The company is forecasting that its overall global severance program will cost the company $350 million to $550 million. Coke had roughly 86,200 employees worldwide as of Dec. 31, of which more than 10,000 were in the U.S.
On the operations side, nine new divisions will replace 17 business units and will focus on scaling new products faster and eliminating the duplication of resources. Coke’s global ventures and bottling investments divisions will be unchanged.
