Diageo’s total workforce was cut in fiscal 2026 by approaching 2,000, according to figures referenced in the group’s annual report this week.
Between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026, the company’s “average full-time-equivalent workforce” sat at 27,938 employees, compared to 29,860 in fiscal 2025. The figures, published in Diageo’s 2026 Annual Report yesterday (18 August), reveal a significant acceleration – to 6.4% – in the rate of average-workforce reduction compared to 2025, when the rate was 1.7% on the year-prior.
While employee numbers in Europe have been rising slowly since fiscal 2024, the largest reductions have occurred in Diageo’s ‘Asia Pacific’ and ‘Africa’ reporting regions. The brand owner has been consolidating its business in Africa over the last couple of years, including the sale of a majority holding in the East African Breweries unit to Asahi Group in December.
Further headcount reduction is expected under CEO Dave Lewis, who joined Diageo in January and laid out details of a “significant” operating framework and supply-chain restructure earlier this month.
Redundancy rumours have been swirling since the former Tesco CEO took over the top post, but Lewis was coy about revealing specifics when asked by journalists at the company’s Capital Markets Day on 6 August. “I don’t want to talk about a number,” he said. “Whilst … the impacts are big, nobody’s saying to me this is the wrong thing to do.”
In the week prior, a Scottish trade union claimed Diageo had placed 172 scotch distillery staff at risk of redundancy, with 38 jobs set to be cut as part of the restructuring programme. GMB Scotland claimed Diageo had been “steam-rolling” through job cuts.
There have also been several top-level personnel changes at the Johnnie Walker & Don Julio brand owner this year – including the hire of Procter & Gamble veteran Sujay Wasan as president of its ‘Asia Pacific’ division.
