British American Tobacco to Cut 950 Jobs

The British American Tobacco planned to cut 950 jobs at their German factory to reduce costs as smoking in Western Europe decline.

The maker of Lucky Strike Cigarettes said on Thursday, that the staff reduction will take place in its 1,320-worker factory over the course of two years.

According to the company, cigarette production will be moved to other European plants, while the company continues to make fine-cut tobacco.

“A challenging economic environment coupled with over-regulation and excessive excise increases in some countries has led to a decline in legitimate volumes,” BAT Germany said in the statement.

The company has cut its total employees from 140,000 in 2001 to about 87,000 at the end of 2015 as an increase in tobacco taxes and bans on public smoking dent cigarette sales. This is one of the reasons BAT announced he was closing a factory in Malaysia due to increase in costs of production.

Data tracked by Euromonitor revealed, smoking rate in Western Europe has declined by 3.6 percent to 23 percent in the last ten years.

British American Tobacco, the world’s third-biggest tobacco company, has a 19 percent share of the German tobacco market.