Pabst eliminates one in five jobs

It’s probably called flexibility. For the second time in as many years, Pabst Brewing Company has undergone a major restructuring, announcing on 18 January 2018 that it has eliminated a total of 70 positions or 18 percent of its workforce.

The cuts will affect all areas of the business and help the company reduce its cost base by 15 percent. To this effect, 50 employees have been let go and another 20 open positions will not be filled.

Last year, Pabst laid off dozens of people, most of whom had been hired in 2016 to promote the Not Your Father’s Root Beer brand from Pabst’s unit Small Town Brewery. According to reports, the alcoholic soda had taken the nation by storm and sales grew to USD 100 million in the off-premise in only six months after it began national distribution.

However, those sales quickly slowed and reversed. They declined by 60 percent in 2017. This suggests that people only bought the alcoholic soda because it was a novelty. Once they had tried and tasted it, they turned away from it again.

The result was slashes to the workforce that promoted and sold Small Town Brewery products.

In mid-2016, Pabst employed a high of 440 people. Currently, after the most recent cuts, that number has fallen to 310.