Coke institutes U.S. hiring freeze

Posted July 14, 2008 2:18 pm by BevNET.com Staff

The weak U.S. economy has prompted the Coca-Cola Co. to
institute an absolute domestic hiring freeze for the remainder of the year, a
spokesman for the company confirmed with Reuters
on Friday.

Beverage Digest
first reported the news after obtaining an internal memo from Coca-Cola North
America President Alexander “Sandy” Douglas, who cited “the challenging
economic environment” as the reason behind the freeze.

Coca-Cola spokesman Scott Williamson told Reuters that the freeze will allow the
company “to focus all of our attention on our plans to continue to build our
business with our retail partners, packaging initiatives and a host of other
programs that we’ll have for 2008.”

The company had instituted a hiring freeze earlier in the
year, BD reported, that made
exceptions for “mission-critical” positions. The latest freeze does not. BD said only job offers made before July
1 would be fulfilled, but the freeze does not include vitaminwater, Fuze,
Odwalla, or positions in Mexico or Canada.