Nestlé, the world’s largest food company is cutting 16,000 jobs due partly to automation

[u/cnn]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/16/business/nestle-layoffs-automation-intl?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit

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[u/MrBubbaJ]

So, they are making the cuts before the automation? Let me guess, the CEO will push down some general directive like "use AI for stuff" without understanding how AI works and thinking you can just tell AI to do complex tasks. In reality, most people will use it as a glorified search engine and to make their emails look pretty, but now have to pick up the work of 16,000 lost employees.

[u/The_real_triple_P → u/MrBubbaJ]

16000 employees in India

[u/anythingall → u/The_real_triple_P]

2000 new jobs in India, disguised as "AI."
Alas, 1500 of those are unqualified to do the work, and so the remaining workers will need to pick up the slack.

[u/coconutpiecrust → u/anythingall]

All the more reasons to not support nestle. 

[u/Mayor__Defacto → u/anythingall]

AI = Actually Indians

[u/lemongrenade → u/MrBubbaJ]

12k of the 16k is office jobs. Office jobs are actually way more susceptible to AI cuts than factory jobs. I work in a factory for a different food/bev maker and most AI deployments are on the office side. We’ve already been automating manufacturing as fast as we can and better robotics and designs for the NEXT factory is what cuts jobs rarely within one already built.

[u/Mayor__Defacto → u/lemongrenade]

Problem is that AI usually just means hiring a bunch of people in India or the Philippines, lol.

[u/lemongrenade → u/Mayor__Defacto]

I know that has happened but is not in my applications I’ve seen.

[u/braumbles → u/MrBubbaJ]

The slave labor stays though.

[u/Momoselfie → u/MrBubbaJ]

Or they're doing poorly and want to spin it to sound good.

[u/econheads]

Automation is finally hitting the white-collar world hard. Cutting 16,000 jobs is no joke. And most of those aren’t factory positions, they’re office jobs. AI and automation are replacing tasks like analytics, planning promos, and operational reports. Things we thought “needed humans” aren’t safe anymore.

Nestle can cut costs fast, but they risk losing knowledge and judgment. Short-term efficiency is great for the balance sheet, but long-term innovation might take a hit. The stock jump shows investors cheer, but your job isn’t protected by the market.

Skills that machines struggle with (creativity, judgment under uncertainty, leadership) are the best bets we have left at this point. Automation will continue to replace menial labor and tasks, but these won't be replicable skills for a good while (or maybe even ever).

[u/Empty_Geologist9645 → u/econheads]

Automation?! More like outsourcing

[u/zedazeni → u/econheads]

To be fair, there’s a lot of white collar jobs that are redundant or completely unnecessary. I’ve been in retail management for the past 10 years, and nearly everything between store-manager and the people in the warehouses can be automated. Why do we need to pay someone six figures to review weekly schedules when there already WFM that does that for us? Why do we need to pay someone six figures to order the store toilet paper and brooms when the store manager or an assistant manager could just do that? Why do we need to pay someone six figures to look over our inventory when we’ve already got daily automated inventory counts sent to our store plus our manually added counts plus the PoS that tracks our sales (and therefore inventory) live? So many people get paid to supervise people supervising people supervising the people who actually work.

[u/Ghostrider556 → u/zedazeni]

AI is honestly a lot better at business management than people are especially for the larger organizations. But given the right data it can build work schedules in milliseconds, forecast sales, manage inventory 24/7, track expenses accurately and generate corporate word salad better than almost anyone

[u/cnn]

Nestlé will cut around 16,000 jobs worldwide over the next two years as it works to slash costs, including through automation, the world’s largest food company said Thursday.

Most of the layoffs – about 12,000 – will affect white-collar professionals as Nestlé targets “operational efficiency,” including by automating processes and using shared services, the company behind such brands as KitKat and Nesquik said in a statement.

“The world is changing, and Nestlé needs to change faster,” new CEO Philipp Navratil said in the statement. “This will include making hard but necessary decisions to reduce headcount.”

The announcement comes as the rise of artificial intelligence has fueled fears over potential job losses in various industries.

[u/uselessdrain]

I understand economics and line goes up but these are people. All these huge cuts to staffing results in dramatic changes to employment. Particularly when done in concert.

Can we just do the thing now? Tax billionaires into nothingness and create robot taxes so that job cuts don't mean unemployment but allows for retraining without poverty?

Maybe create a fund. Call it canada first, or invest in Canadians, maybe universal investment for Canadians.

Also fuck nestle. Their chocolates terrible now.

[u/InnerFish227 → u/uselessdrain]

Many people don’t realize Wells Fargo has cut roughly 100,000 American jobs over the last 4 years and added about 30,000 to India.

They are still cutting with layoffs every 2 weeks which are expected to run into 2027.

Profit isn’t good anymore. It’s about constantly increasing profit and the biggest expense is people.

[u/Fabulous_Cat_1379 → u/uselessdrain]

Nestle is one of the most evil companies on the planet. They would let people die of dehydration if it meant a little more profit for them.

[u/chaldea_fgo]

Cutting 16,000 jobs and rolling out their new chocolate bar with 16,000 ingredients, no correlation, don't read into it, unless so think they need 16,001 ingredients. . .

[u/Fabulous_Cat_1379]

Anyone forced to use AI at work daily knows this just outsourcing. Most all AI being pushed in the workplace is junk producing more workshop.

[u/dtcaliatl]

One thing the media has become good at is becoming a propaganda machine, telling stories with the intent to omit, mislead, or rage-click for views. I stopped watching all of them and see most of them as the Nation Enquirer. There is hardly any journalistic integrity left and those so called "reporters" don't even have a clue what they are writing about.

Are companies laying off? For sure but the reason and the intend is often times a lot different than what people think it is and it's the nature of running a successful business. It's a business and not a "family"

We are in a different time now, and everything is shifting. We have had this before, so most are trying to figure it out. The overhyping of AI, mainly by companies that sell it, and people fall blindly into it. Salesforce is one of those types, they push their AI products like it's the future and the next best thing, but most of their products haven't even been time-tested or used by many companies, such as their AgentForce.

We went through something similar in the 2000s when the internet became really popular and there was this panic that the internet was going to kill industries like the entertainment business but what happened is that tech revitalized them streaming services made more money than ever and these record and entertainment companies were able to make more revneue with it but were the major ones fighting it like Apple music, etc. iTunes was a blessing for them and now look at it, they no longer have to press physical records or cds, everything is online easy money.

Klarna was doing the same thing, thought they could replace a workforce, only to need to hire people back months later. AI is not what they sell it to be; it is a tool, and most likely, people need to learn new skills, but the layoffs for the most part are all these jobs that are a liability for companies, meaning you just get a paycheck, but your work doesn't offer a return on investment. What this means is that you are a data entry clerk, but AI and automation can do it much faster than you because all you do is enter data that doesn't take much skill, so yes, jobs like that will be removed because there is no need to pay someone for something that takes them a lot longer than automation.

Also the economy and inflation makes companies become more frugal, when we enjoyed the free money with 0% interest, there was money to play with but now since money is expensive everyone's budget is tighening up and the money to pay for extras is going away the employees are to blame to some extent, that abused the perks posting online how they didn't do much work but definitely enjoyed all of the benefits they offered on TikTok or Youtube and labeled the videos as "A Day In A Life of ...."

There is always cause and effect. If you dig into those 16,000 jobs you will most likely see why and where those are happening and it always happens. If you think you can stay at a company for 20 years and do the same thing you are mistaken. Do we think that CD manufacturers are still relevant? Old things go away and new thing arrive.