BL Premium reports that Heineken SA, owner of beer brands Amstel and Windhoek, has become the first major company to cut jobs as a result of SA’s third alcohol sales ban, which has stopped trade since late December.
Europe’s biggest brewer, which is among SA’s main investors, said it planned to reduce its domestic workforce by about 7%, or by 70 positions out of 1,000. The decision comes just days after SA Breweries (SAB), a unit of the world’s largest brewer, AB InBev, cancelled R2.5bn in planned investment. Glass manufacturer Consol, which has the alcohol industry as one of its biggest clients and has been spending R8m every day on production despite a collapse in demand, said this week it was doing everything it could to avoid retrenching workers The sale of liquor has been prohibited for a cumulative 15 weeks in three separate bans since the outbreak of Covid-19. Both Heineken and AB InBev are multinational companies that appear to be losing patience with SA’s restrictions. Heineken’s HR director, Yvonne Mosadi, said the decision to proceed with retrenchments "was certainly not an easy one to make" and the company had looked at other ways to cut costs in the face of a pandemic and restrictions that have been "devastating".
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Katharine Child at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Read too, Western Cape calls for booze ban to be lifted as infections decline, at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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