(Reuters) -Procter & Gamble said on Thursday it would cut 7,000 jobs, or about 6%, of its total workforce over the next two years, as the Tide detergent maker navigates uneven demand due to tariff uncertainty.
P&G also plans to exit some categories, brands and product forms in individual markets, executives said at a Deutsche Bank conference in Paris, adding that the exits could also likely include some brand divestitures.
The company had about 108,000 employees as of June 30, 2024 and said the job cuts would account for roughly 15% of its non-manufacturing workforce.
P&G’s new two-year plan comes at a time when the company, along with several other consumer goods firms, is anticipating higher costs due to the trade war and are battling muted consumer demand.
In April, the Pampers maker said it would raise prices on some products and that it was prepared to pull every lever in its arsenal to mitigate the impact of tariffs.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs have roiled global markets and led to fears of a recession in the U.S., the biggest market for P&G.
On Thursday, P&G’s finance chief Andre Schulten and operations head Shailesh Jejurikar acknowledged that the geopolitical environment was “unpredictable” and that consumers were facing “greater uncertainty.”
“This is not a new approach, rather an intentional acceleration of the current strategy to widen P&G’s margin of advantage in superiority, fuelled by productivity, to win in the increasingly challenging environment in which we compete,” executives said.
P&G added that the restructuring plan would help simplify the organizational structure by “making roles broader, teams smaller.”
The planned changes to its product portfolio would also help the company tweak its supply chain in order to reduce costs, P&G said.
(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Rashmi Aich)
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