The UK will escape the worst of the Heineken’s job cuts, announced earlier this week, with less than 100 jobs expected to be cut here, following a consultation process which began in October. Across the globe, nearly 10% of its 85,000 workforce will be lost due to the ongoing pandemic which has devastated the brewers business. The company reported a net loss of £178.7m, compared with a £1.9bn profit in the previous year.
Although Heineken had seen increased sales in supermarkets, this had not made up for the impact of the pandemic due to the closure of pubs and the restrictions imposed on them.
Heineken UK’s largest site is in Edinburgh, where 600 employees are located and the rest are located throughout England.
A spokesperson for the company said, “The closure of pubs in March and subsequent restrictions, including over the Christmas period, have had an impact on sales volumes of beer and cider for the full year.”
New chief executive Dolf van den Brink revealed the news as he explained how he planned to restore margins and increase productivity and save £2 billion.
He also revealed just some of the support the company had given its customers, suppliers and the communities most impacted by the pandemic.
Said Dolf van den Brink, “We assisted customers with advice, re-opening tools, stock returns and helped them set up online delivery. We supported them financially, for example, by waiving close to €50 million in rental payments. We raised over €10 million to support 50,000 outlets across 21 countries through our Back the Bars initiative. We continued to pay all suppliers on time and reduced payment terms to various small suppliers.
“We provided twenty-three million Euros worth of pandemic relief to support front-line medical workers in the communities where we operate, including drinking water, non-alcoholic beverages, hand sanitiser, and monetary contributions. These included a €15 million donation to the International Red Cross. In Mexico, we announced a dry ice donation of 55 tons to help safely transport vaccines at low-temperatures. The de Carvalho-Heineken family together with their holding company donated €10 million to eight charities supporting the COVID-19 relief efforts.”