Hershey cuts jobs after soaring cocoa costs hurt candy sales
NY Post
Hershey announced layoffs Thursday after reporting its quarterly earnings were hit by the soaring cost of cocoa and inflation-weary shoppers who cut back on the company’s expensive chocolates and candies.
The Pennsylvania-based company said it would slash 5% of its workforce, resulting in as much as $60 million in severance costs.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many jobs among the company’s workforce of roughly 18,075 full-time and nearly 2,000 part-time staffers would be affected, or what teams would be impacted.
“We do not expect significant disruption or impact to our employee base with impact being less than 5% of our workforce,” a Hershey spokesperson told The Post on Thursday.
The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups-maker said that the layoffs are part of a new multi-year productivity initiative to generate long-term savings as the company looks to offset declining sales in the face of rising cocoa, sugar and labor costs.
The move is intended to generate pre-tax costs of $200 million to $250 million from inception through 2026.
