Diageo scythes through Scotland

Diageo’s latest announcement (1 July 2009) as concerns their restructuring programme makes dispiriting reading: 700 jobs lost at Kilmarnock packaging plant; 140 jobs lost at the 200-year-old Port Dundas Distillery and Dundashill cooperage in Glasgow; 30 jobs lost at Shieldhall packaging plant; 80 office jobs at Dundas House transferred; 40 staff transferred from Carsebridge to Cambus sites; 64 warehouse jobs at Hurlford transferred out; 36 remaining Hurlford jobs relocated; 16 jobs in Speyside transferred out.

In exchange, the company is expanding the packaging plant in Fife, which will create 400 jobs. A new coopering centre will also be created in Clackmannanshire, the company said.

There will be no compulsory redundancies at impacted sites for 12 months, Diageo said, and they will now engage in formal consultation with employees.

With these restructurings, Diageo plan to cut costs by GBP 120 million annually, it was reported, plus another GBP 40 million until the end of their current financial year (to 30 June 2010).

Following the job losses and the new jobs created, the company will employ some 4,000 people in Scotland.

Diageo Ireland last month cut 107 jobs from their Irish operations, or 5 percent of the company’s workforce.