British American Tobacco plans to reduce its workforce by about 20% as it pushes ahead with an AI-led restructuring aimed at cutting costs and boosting profits amid regulatory pressures and product launch delays.
The company said on Monday it would cut about 5,500 jobs and move roughly 3,500 roles to third-party firms, including Accenture, affecting around 9,000 employees in total. The restructuring excludes the U.S., its biggest market.
BAT said the program was expected to deliver 600 million pounds ($793 million) in additional annualized savings by 2028, with 500 million pounds targeted by 2027.
Still, its shares were down 1.6% to 46.73 pounds at 0940 GMT, underperforming the FTSE 100, which was down 0.3%.
Scale of reductions
