Glanbia to cut 210 jobs under cost saving plan

Food group Glanbia is seeking 210 redundancies as part of a previously-announced cost saving plan, a spokeswoman confirmed this morning.

In a letter to staff Glanbia said explained the redundancies were part of its “rationalisation programme” and would apply to its 2,200 staff in the Republic and the North. Globally the group employs almost 4,000 people.

A spokeswoman said “the majority” of the redundancies would be voluntary but declined to provide a timeframe for the job losses.

The programme will result in an exceptional cost of €16 million this year although Glanbia was unable to provide a figure for the expected savings expected once the rationalisation plan is complete.

In an interim management statement last month, Glanbia said it planned to cut costs due to lower consumer demand in a changing global economic climate.

Glanbia, which has an Irish consumer foods operation and an international cheese manufacturing and nutritional ingredients group, said in its letter to staff that global dairy markets were labouring under lower demand.

Aside from the redundancies Glanbia plans to significantly cut capital expenditure and is reducing wage rates for senior management.

John Moloney, Glanbia managing director and all other non-executive directors have taken a 10 per cent pay cut while a 5 per cent cut will apply to other senior management.

In the letter Mr Moloney said the company is facing “one of the most difficult trading environments seen for many years” due to falling consumer demand and currency volatility.

Glanbia Consumer Foods had previously announced its intention to cut 50 jobs following a review of its operations.

At 3pm shares in Glanbia were marginally higher per cent higher at €2.56 giving the company a market cap of €751 million.