Coca-Cola Will Slash 6,000 Jobs, Some in Human Resources

Typically when large companies cut their workforces, unskilled and semi-skilled labor is the first to go. But Coca-Cola Co.'s recently announced job cuts are hitting its human resource professionals closer to home.

The company said it will eliminate about 6,000 jobs, or about one-fifth of its work force, as part of a major restructuring at the world's largest soft drink maker. The jobs being cut are in areas such as human resources, information systems support and facilities management, company spokesman Ben Deutsch said. He said the company now plans to outsource some of that work.

The job cuts are the largest in the company's 113-year-history and will impact 2,500 positions at the company's Atlanta headquarters, as well as 2,700 outside the United States and 800 jobs elsewhere in the United States.

Coca-Cola said it is taking the action to improve its profitability. The soft drink maker estimated that the cuts will save $300 million.

Douglas Daft, Coca-Cola president who will become chairman and CEO after the company's April shareholders' meeting, called the job reductions ''painful both for those within the company who will be directly affected and for those responsible for making this decision.''

The size of the cuts surprised many analysts who had predicted Coke would trim 2,000 to 4,000 jobs. But Daft said the 6,000 figure was chosen after a six-month review of the company's entire operation. ''This was not a targeted number. There was no sense of saying we need to reduce x-number of positions,'' Daft said in an Associated Press interview.