Reynolds cutting 570 tobacco jobs
Published: Wed, Sep. 10, 2008 12:30AM
Modified Wed, Sep. 10, 2008 02:24AM
E-Mail
Print
tool name
closeWINSTON-SALEM -- Reynolds American and its tobacco unit, R.J. Reynolds will cut about 570 jobs, or 10 percent of its U.S. work force, as cigarette sellers prepare to compete more aggressively for sales of smokeless tobacco products.
White-collar workers at the company's Winston-Salem headquarters will take the brunt of the cuts. Reynolds expects the cuts to save $100 million by the end of 2010 and $55 million a year after that.
Its employees will begin losing their jobs in the third quarter, but some cuts will take until the end of 2009.
More Business
Reynolds' decisions comes after its bigger rival, Philip Morris USA owner Altria Group, announced Monday that it would buy UST, the maker of Skoal and Copenhagen, for $10.4 billion.
Reynolds plans other changes, including scaling back marketing and promotional support for its Kool menthol brand cigarettes, and boosting the amount of marketing money it spends on Camel brand menthol products. The Pall Mall label will remain one of the company's growth brands.
Get it all with convenient home delivery of The News & Observer.
The News & Observer is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting.
Since The News & Observer does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our website. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The News and Observer.
If you find a comment offensive, clicking on the exclamation icon will flag the comment for review by the administrators, we are counting on the good judgment of all our readers to help us.
