Procter & Gamble, a company responsible for developing many of the most recognizable household brands and health products used by over 4.6 billion people globally, announced on Thursday that they would be executing more job cuts. The news comes as P&G faces increasing pressure from investors to improve their productivity and efficiency results, as they hold their bi-annual analyst meeting in Cincinnati with more than 100 Wall Street analysts.
These additional cuts come on top of the previously announced removal of 5,700 non-manufacturing jobs by the end of the company’s fiscal year in June, which represent about 10 percent of non-manufacturing jobs. These cuts come from the increasing demand for P&G to increase efficiency and decrease expenses in order to keep up with competition.
Procter & Gamble has roughly 126,000 full-time employees worldwide, including approximately 12,000 in the greater Cincinnati area. Leaders of P&G based in Cincinnati said in a meeting with industry analysts that they plan to cut another 2 to 4 percent of non-manufacturing jobs each year from 2014-2016. By October 31, P&G had cut about 4,700 jobs throughout the entire company.
Though P&G officials confirmed that the company would meet projected sales and earnings targets for the fourth quarter and fiscal year of 2013, productivity is becoming progressively more important to the company. P&G is aiming for $10 billion in “productivity and cost savings” from now through fiscal year 2016.
According to global product supply officer Yannis Skoufalous, P&G plans to open new plants in China, Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia in fiscal years 2013 and 2014. Subsequently, the company is aiming for a 5 percent annual net productivity improvement across manufacturing sites, enabling 20 new sites in development markets with no increase in worker headcount. Achieving this improvement would be equal to four plants closing a year, said Skoufalous.
These job cuts are part of a new initiative taken by the maker of Tide, Pampers, and Crest to create a “culture of productivity,” according to CEO Bob McDonald.
It’s not currently known how the job cuts will affect Ohio, which has 14,000 P&G employees, including 12,000 in southwestern Ohio, though Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller assures “Cincinnati will continue to be extremely important to us, and a disproportionate number of resources will be located here.”
Sources: Community Press Cincinnati, The Washington Post, Middletown Journal