CALGARY – Shaw Communications has laid off hundreds of people across Canada as part of a company reorganization.
Shaw says the layoffs were needed to keep up in an increasingly competitive industry.
“We looked at our regional structure and rather than 18 regions we’ve now reorganized into seven larger regions which provides us with some more cost effective ways of providing services,” says Shaw President Peter Bissonnette.
Approximately 500 people received their notices Wednesday; Calgary was among the hardest hit with 140 employees let go.
Bissonnette says the majority of the positions were corporate managers and supervisors as well as a few information and IT employees.
“When you’re in a very competitive environment and you look at the impact of the competition on your business, it drove us toward becoming a little bit leaner, taking some layers out of the organization,” says Bissonnette.
Customer service calls handled by a call centre in Saskatoon will now be redirected to a larger centre in Winnipeg resulting in approximately 55 more layoffs.
90 employees of a warehouse in Langley, B.C. were affected as well as workers in Vancouver Island, Edmonton, Kelowna, Kamploops, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Red Deer and Lethbridge.
Bissonnette says the layoffs are not connected with the company’s recent purchase of Global Television, now branded Shaw Media.
With the exception of the call centre employees in Saskatoon, all layoffs were immediate.
The layoffs equal about 4 per cent of the company’s staff of 13,000.
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