RAI Workforce Down 11 Percent in 2022

Reynolds American Inc. reduced its workforce by 10.7 percent, reports the Winston-Salem Journal, citing the 2022 annual report from parent company British American Tobacco.

In July 2017, BAT purchased the 57.8 percent of Reynolds it did not already own for $54.5 billion. Legacy Reynolds shareholders own 19 percent of BAT.

Reynolds had 4,921 U.S. employees in 2020 and 4,789 employees in 2021, according to the company’s annual reports.

The workforce is down 22.3 percent from about 5,500 on Dec. 31, 2016, when Reynolds published its last corporate annual report.

In March 2021, Reynolds announced its largest workforce reduction in a decade—350 full-time positions—as part of consolidating more of its manufacturing production into the Tobaccoville plant. The consolidation began in April and will take through 2024 to complete.

BAT’s overall workforce decreased by 5.9 percent to 77,951.

In January, BAT announced a major restructuring of its global operations. As part of the plan, the company will reduce the number of regions from four to three, and the number of business units from 16 to 12.

After the restructuring, the company’s regions will be USA (RAI), Americas & Europe (AME) and Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (APMEA)