This Massive Food And Beverage Company Is Cutting 16k Jobs And The Reason Couldn't Be Clearer

Nestlé will cut 16,000 jobs in the next two years as the Vevey, Switzerland-based conglomerate hopes to save money and expand growth. The manufacturer and distributor of products like Nesquik, Perrier, Ovaltine, DiGiorno, Gerber, KitKat, and Nespresso and Starbucks at-home coffees is set to eliminate 12,000 white-collar jobs across the world by the end of 2027, per a mid-October 2025 press release. Another 4,000 jobs — related to manufacturing and distribution — will similarly be cut. These job cuts will supposedly help Nestlé achieve a "targeted savings" of three billion Swiss francs, a figure that is equivalent to just over $3.8 billion.

These announced job cuts come not long after Nestlé faced a corporate scandal and fired its CEO for violating the company's code of conduct when he didn't disclose a romantic relationship with a subordinate in September 2025. A 40-year veteran of Nestlé, Laurent Freixe was CEO for less than a year before he was let go in September 2025. His termination was followed by Nestlé chairman Paul Bulcke's resignation after the company received pressure from investors for new leadership. 

However, despite leadership shakeups, another possible motive for this recent money-saving push could actually be the U.S., as Nestlé has warned of "increased negative impact from tariffs already in place," a reference to the taxes the Trump Administration has placed on foreign goods entering the U.S. About 35% of Nestlé's market comes from the U.S. and Canada — the company's largest market segment.

The corporate shakeup also comes after investors have urged the company to slim down as the company deals with higher debt, sluggish sales, and an unstable global economy. According to Reuters, Nestlé share value has fallen by 40% since 2022. To reverse this trend, Nestlé new CEO, Philipp Navratil has claimed that internal growth is now the company's number one priority. However, accomplishing that growth will mean Nestlé needs to shrink its workforce by 6%. "The world is changing, and Nestlé needs to change faster. This will include making hard but necessary decisions to reduce headcount over the next two years," Navratil said in a company release. 

A major way the company intends to grow, despite having fewer people, is by relying more heavily on AI and automation. According to the company's 2024 annual review, Nestlé has used AI and automation to yield returns and remove inefficiencies. This includes a new Generative AI program that has sped up the company's product idea process from six months to six weeks, per Nestlé. However, the uncertainty of AI's impact on the economy, despite investor excitement, could make already grim financial predictions even worse. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios that new AI models make it easier for companies to shed mid and top level white collar positions — which could cause unemployment to skyrocket by as much as 20%.