CADBURY AXE 7500 WORKERS; Jobs cut after profits plunge.

CONFECTIONERY and drinks giants Cadbury Schweppes are slashing their workforce by 7500.

The jobs will go worldwide in the Dairy Milk makers' "radical programme of cost reduction and efficiency".

The firm also plan to chop their number of confectionery sites by 15 per cent. It's not clear to what extent their workers and plants in Britain will be hit.

Cadbury Schweppes employ about 50,000 staff, including 6000 in the UK. As well as their head office in London and base in Hertfordshire, they have factories in Wales, Herefordshire, Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield and Devon.

The restructuring comes amid plans to split the company, with their US beverages operation set to be sold.

And it's just a year since their profits were hit by a salmonella scare involving contaminated chocolate bars.

The cost-cutting exercise will help improve their profits margin in confectionery from 10.1 per cent to mid-teens by 2011, they say. After the split, the firmwill be renamed Cadbury, with annual revenues of about pounds 5billion.

A spokesman said: "Our cost reduction initiatives will impact all parts of the group, in sales, general and administration costs and supply chain, in the regions and at the group centre."

Their last major cuts four years ago resulted in 30 plants closing.

Cadbury have 35 confectionery sites in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with another 59 bottling and manufacturing sites around the world.

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CHOCS AWAY: Cadbury Schweppes have eight bases in the UK