Snack and beverage major, PepsiCo, is laying off headquarters workers from its North American units, citing a report of the Wall Street Journal news agency Bloomberg said. According to the report, PepsiCo described the layoffs as intended to ‘simplify’ the organisation. This development is a clear signal that corporate reductions are beginning to extend beyond technology and media companies.
PepsiCo spokespeople, however, didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment. The company’s shares edged up 0.1 per cent in after-hours trading. Even though it’s paying more for commodities such as sugar, corn, and potatoes and passing those higher prices on to consumers, the maker of Frito-Lay chips, Mountain Dew soft drinks and Quaker Oats cereals has said that demand for its products remains strong.
Nevertheless, the uncertain economic environment and persistence of inflation has rattled companies in a variety of industries and led them to retrench on costs.
Another US e-commerce giant Amazon also plans to lay off as many as 20,000 employees in the coming months, including distribution center workers, technology staff, and corporate executives, according to a report by Computerworld. The company has decided to sack employees after it went on a hiring spree during the Covid pandemic.
Amazon employees are ranked from level 1 to level 7, and staff at all levels will likely be affected, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke with Computerworld requesting anonymity. The New York Times first reported in mid-November that Amazon would enact mass layoffs, and as many as 10,000 people would be sacked.
On the other hand, PC-maker Hewlett Packard said it would terminate as many as 6,000 employees over the next three years as the slumping world economy continues to embroil the US tech sector.
National Public Radio is restricting hiring and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s CNN is cutting jobs, as are several other media giants. Meanwhile, big tech companies, Apple Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are laying off several employees.