Coca-Cola to begin cutting 1,200 jobs later this year

ATLANTA - Coca-Cola said Tuesday it will be eliminating 1,200 corporate jobs later this year as part of an expanded cost-cutting program.

Coca-Cola President James Quincey, who is set to take over as chief executive of the Atlanta company on May 1, announced the job cuts during the company's first-quarter earnings call with investors.

No specifics were immediately available on how many jobs might be cut at Coca-Cola's headquarters, but a company spokesman said the number would be 'significant.”

'We expect to see changes throughout our corporate organization, including Atlanta and elsewhere, as we fundamentally change the way we work to be faster, more agile and more efficient,” Coca-Cola spokesman Kent Landers said. 'While we don't yet know the exact impact in Atlanta, we expect it will be a significant percentage of the total.”

The company has about 7,500 employees in metro Atlanta and 9,000 in Georgia, including both bottling operations and its corporate headquarters.

Quincey said the job cuts will begin in the second half of this year and extend into 2018. He said the reductions are part of the company's efforts to save about $800 million by 2019 through job cuts, reduced marketing spending and restructuring some of its operations.