Unilever is planning to scrap one in three office jobs and the Rotterdam and London offices will be hardest hit, the Financial Times said on Friday.
The paper bases its claim on an internal video message and says up to 3,200 jobs will be affected in total.
A spokesman told broadcaster NOS that talks with the affected members of staff will take place in the coming weeks. “At the moment we can say nothing about how many jobs are going in which countries,” the spokesman said.
Some 11,000 people currently work at Unilever’s European offices.
The company said in March it planned a major reorganization with the loss of 7,500 office jobs worldwide. Unilever, which is under shareholder pressure to improve its profitability, hopes the job cuts will save some €800 million in costs in the coming three years.
Unilever also said in March it is selling off its ice cream unit, which includes Ola, Magnum, Hertog and Ben & Jerry’s.
Aletta Bulsink from the CNV trade union federation told NOS she is shocked by the scale of the redundancies. The news has “created enormous uncertainty”, she said.
The company currently has a workforce of 2,700 in the Netherlands.
Do you work for Unilever and are you affected? Feel free to share your thoughts via editor@dutchnews.nl.
Thank you for donating to DutchNews.nl.
We could not provide the Dutch News service, and keep it free of charge, without the generous support of our readers. Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter, and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day.