French dairy major Danone to eliminate 900 jobs in recession-hit Europe

French dairy major Groupe Danone plans to eliminate 900 jobs in order to cope with the downturn in Europe and be more profitable next year.

Danone, which bought the nutrition business of pharmaceutical major Wockhardt in 2011 for Rs1,576 crore (See: Danone to buy Wockhardt's nutrition business for Rs1,576 crore), will reduce the number of its management units by half by merging teams from several countries into multi-country units and combine some management functions.

The personnel restructuring will result in 900 jobs being lost across 26 countries in Europe, and is a part of a wider plan announced in December to save €200 million ($267 million).

The job cuts works out to around 3.3 per cent of its global workforce of 102,000, including 27,000 in Europe.

Danone will present the job cutting plan to the company's European Works Council today and aims to achieve this over two years through voluntary redundancies and internal mobility.

Releasing its 2012 results today, the world's largest yogurt maker said that net income rose by 5.4 per cent to €1.82 billion last year on revenues of €20.9 billion, compared to net income of €1.75 billion on revenues of €19.3 billion a year earlier.