AMSTERDAM: Below-pressure Dutch brewer Heineken stated on Wednesday (Feb 11) that it might scrap as much as 6,000 jobs because it faces what it known as “difficult market circumstances” with beer volumes down in comparison with final 12 months.
The corporate stated it might be “accelerating productiveness at scale to unlock vital financial savings, decreasing 5,000 to six,000 roles over the following two years”.
“We stay prudent in our near-term expectations for beer market circumstances,” chief govt Dolf van den Brink stated in a press release.
Merchants appeared to welcome information of the job cuts, with shares up round 3 per cent on the opening on the Amsterdam inventory alternate.
Van den Brink shocked the corporate final month by saying that he could be stepping down after virtually six years on the helm.
He instructed reporters he was leaving with “combined feelings” after acknowledging that he had guided the corporate “by turbulent financial and political instances”.
“My precedence for the approaching months is to go away Heineken within the strongest attainable place,” he stated.
Heineken employs round 87,000 folks globally.
In October, the brewer had already introduced it was reducing or reassigning 400 jobs as a part of a reorganisation of its Amsterdam head workplace to reap the benefits of new applied sciences.
SHIPMENTS SLIP
Executives declined to specify the place the majority of the job cuts would come, however chief monetary officer Harold van den Broek hinted they might are available Europe.
“Europe is a giant a part of our enterprise,” he instructed reporters. “And also you see from the monetary outcomes additionally that it is vitally robust to drive working leverage there.”
“So we’re focusing most of the initiatives to strengthen our European enterprise, however not completely so,” he stated.
Beer volumes globally on the world’s second-biggest brewer after AB InBev have been down 2.4 per cent in 2025, the agency reported in its annual outcomes.
The decline was particularly extreme in Europe and the Americas, which dropped 4.1 per cent and three.5 per cent, respectively.
Within the fourth quarter of final 12 months, whole world beer volumes have been down 2.8 per cent.
Complete annual gross sales for Heineken got here in at 34.4 billion euros (us$41 billion), in comparison with the 36.0 billion it banked in 2024.
Web earnings have been 2.7 billion euros, which the agency stated was a 4.9 per cent achieve on final 12 months when foreign money fluctuations have been stripped out.
Waiting for 2026, Heineken forecasts full-year natural working revenue development of two to 6 per cent, after a 4.4 per cent rise final 12 months to 4.4 billion euros.
