Redundancies at AB-InBev
Anheuser-Busch has recently completed a round of layoffs, U.S. media reported. But it would not say how many employees were affected, how many were in St. Louis, or give a date the layoffs occurred.
The trade publication Ad Age reported on 19 November 2014 that the cuts included brand marketing positions. It also wrote that the brewer recently eliminated jobs in its in-house media unit, Busch Media Group. AB-InBev said in September it would outsource its media buying to an outside agency.
On 20 November 2014 U.S. media reported further that Anheuser-Busch will cut an unspecified number of jobs in its U.S. sales division as part of a consolidation. Next year, it will reduce the number of sales territories in the U.S. to seven from eight.
The job cuts may be in connection with AB-InBev’s recently published results. The company’s third-quarter profit was USD 2.3 billion, up only slightly from USD 2.2 billion in the prior-year quarter, as total sales volume in hectolitres declined by 2.6 percent, with a 2.7 percent decline in beer volume and 0.9 percent decline in non-beer volume.
The company had 16,852 employees in its North American division (Canada plus the U.S.) at the end of 2013, down from 21,871 at the end of 2008, according to Ad Age.
