A Canadian
telecommunications company
has announced
job cuts
.
Bell Canada
is set to layoff 4,800 employees as part of cost-cutting measures. The media and telecom company attributed these cuts to declining
legacy phone
and news business, as well as what they termed as "unsupportive" government and regulatory decisions.
Calling it the biggest restructuring in three decades, the company will have to let go off 9% of its workforce. This is the second round of layoff as Bell Canada fired 1300 employees last year.
Mirko Bibic, Bell CEOB attributed the failure of the federal government to "level the playing field with global tech giants." Additionally, he expressed particular concern regarding the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications's (CRTC) decision mandating Bell to allow competitors to utilise their infrastructure for selling internet services.
“We need to take additional measures in response to increasingly unsupportive federal government and regulatory decisions,” added Bibic.
Bibic also mentioned that the company’s advertising revenue has declined in 2023 and news operators were posting losses. He further added that this latest round of job cuts is expected to save the company between C$150-$200 million this year.
Canada has recently enacted legislation compelling tech companies to remunerate Canadian publishers for news content. This move comes after years of complaints from the media industry concerning news organisations ceding ground in the online advertising arena to major tech entities such as Google from Alphabet and Facebook from Meta Platforms.
English (US) ·