By James Wells
Diageo Australia has confirmed 35 staff redundancies in a broad restructure across its business that will also see Bundaberg Rum bottling operations relocated to Sydney.
A Diageo spokesperson told TheShout that ten jobs are expected to be lost as a result of the Bundaberg bottling facility relocating to join the RTD manufacturing lines at Huntingwood, a move that is expected to be completed by July 1, 2014.
A total of 25 people will leave the business from what has been described as ‘middle management’ positions and ‘back-office’ roles within the corporate, supply and commercial business. Diageo’s ‘supply’ division is the manufacturing division of the company located in Bundaberg and Huntingwood.
Also within the redundancies are up to five staff members from the commercial sales team.
“People will be leaving the business between now and the end of the financial year (30 June),” the spokesperson said.
She said the final number of employees at the Bundaberg Distillery and Diageo Australia overall could not be confirmed “until consultation has been completed” and it was too early to tell whether there will be any new roles created as a result of the restructure.
“Where we have vacant roles our preference is to redeploy our own people where possible,” the spokesperson said.
“Our people are our number one priority and we will support them throughout this change.”
Diageo global chief executive Ivan Menezes warned in January of potential job losses in areas such as back-office, infrastructure and the supply chain, as well as decentralisation of management to increase the agility of the company.
Diageo Australia conducted a round of redundancies in mid-2012 with approximately 20 roles from the innovation and sales team affected.
The company attributed the latest restructure to falling alcohol consumption and high excise on RTDs and spirits.