Heineken Plans Thousands of Job Cuts to Weather Beer-Market Headwinds — 2nd Update

By Joshua Kirby

Heineken aims to slash thousands of jobs to reduce costs as it grapples with weak beer-market trends.

As part of a plan to save hundreds of millions of euros a year, the Dutch brewer said Wednesday that it would cut between 5,000 and 6,000 roles over the next two years, or up to 7% of its current workforce.

"It is important that this is done to strengthen our performance," finance chief Harold van den Broek told reporters in a call. The slimmed-down staff force will entail clustering of some market operations, including the closing of some breweries outside of Europe, Van Den Broek said.

The plan to cut jobs comes as Heineken reported a 1.7% on-year drop in beer volumes in the last three months of 2025 against a pallid consumer backdrop. Volumes for the year as a whole fell 1.2%. In the key European market, volumes declined 3.4% in 2025, highlighting the challenges Heineken faces as it looks to get some momentum going.

Beer sales have been hit in recent years by higher costs for brewers and by dimming enthusiasm for drinking among consumers, with tighter purse strings exacerbated by growing health consciousness, especially among younger drinkers.

With volumes sliding, revenue growth of 2.4% for the year was achieved through higher prices, though not in all markets, Chief Executive Dolf van den Brink said. In Europe, the group raised prices at a level below average consumer-price inflation, Van den Brink said.

"We remain a bit concerned about affordability" in Europe, he said. "We don't want to put on too much pressure through pricing. We're trying to find the right balance."

Industry analysts expect worldwide beer-volume growth to prove meager this year, despite a likely boost from the soccer World Cup due to be held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico this summer.

And those tough trends aren't likely to ease anytime soon, said Van den Brink, who is set to step down from his role at the end of May, with a successor yet to be named.

"We remain prudent in our near-term expectations for beer market conditions," the CEO said.

The company last year said it was aiming to cut costs by up to half a billion euros a year as it battles to bolster its profits in the face of lower consumer demand, trade tariffs and global uncertainty.

Those headwinds have buffeted the beer industry as a whole. For 2025, Heineken's Danish rival Carlsberg reported an organic drop in volumes, and analysts expect market leader and Budweiser brewer AB InBev to do the same when it sets out its own results for the year on Thursday.

But Heineken, which alongside its namesake brand produces labels like Desperados and Amstel, has its own particular problems. The group has struggled to reposition itself strategically, and Van den Brink's surprise announcement last month that he would leave has added fresh uncertainty to the company's direction ahead.

Sluggish performance in Europe remains a notable headwind for the brewer, analysts at Bank of America told investors in a recent note.

"And the recent CEO announcement adds a degree of short-term uncertainty," BofA said.

The reduction in headcount should help Heineken save up to 500 million euros ($594.8 million) this year, the upper end of the company's midterm target for annual cost savings. That will add to growth in operating profit of between 2% and 6% this year, the company said.

That guidance should help qualm investor fears amid Van Den Brink's departure, analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote following the update. "In a context of concerns following the unscheduled resignation of the CEO, this should be enough to calm worries."

Shares rose more than 5% in European morning trade.

Write to Joshua Kirby at joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 11, 2026 04:07 ET (09:07 GMT)