The Toronto-based telecom said that the layoffs affected a small number of its customer-service team.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Rogers Communications Inc. RCI-B-T has laid off customer-service staff in multiple provinces in its latest staff cut after a reduction in demand for online chat services, and as the telecom faces industry headwinds and high debt levels.
The Toronto-based company declined to share the number of employees affected, saying in a statement that the layoffs affected a small number of its customer-service team.
“While a small percentage of roles in our customer-service team are impacted, we continue to grow and hire people to support our operations across the country,” said Rogers spokesperson Zac Carreiro. According to the company’s latest annual report, the company had 26,000 employees at the end of 2023.
After investments in customer self-service options and digital tools, which help its agents assist customers more efficiently, interactions with its online chat team have dropped by 20 per cent compared with last year, he said.
Rogers said it would also continue to work with third-party providers for additional support, and that its online chat services would still be available to customers.
A partner at Toronto-based employment law firm Samfiru Tumarkin LLP told The Globe and Mail it was contacted by dozens of employees on Wednesday night and Thursday morning whose jobs had been cut.
“We are reviewing severance packages for dozens of Rogers employees who were let go as part of this restructuring, many of whom had long tenures with the company,” Lior Samfiru, the firm’s national co-managing partner, said in an e-mail.
The majority of the impacted roles were in Ontario, Rogers said.
However, Samfiru Tumarkin said it was also contacted by employees in British Columbia, and a current Rogers employee said staff in Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba had also been affected. This includes some former Shaw customer-support staff, according to the employee.
A former employee said the layoffs had also affected some of the company’s social-media customer-support team.
Some staff, who were not scheduled to work on Wednesday or Thursday, were still being informed that they should watch for an e-mail from human resources in the coming days, another former Rogers employee said.
The Globe is not naming the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the layoffs.
Rogers is not the only telecom aiming to reduce its staff. Recently, rivals BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. offered severance packages to 1,200 and 700 unionized employees across the country, respectively.
Both companies said the offers are the result of challenges facing Canada’s telecommunications industry, as well as organizational initiatives that have led to reduced workloads requiring fewer positions.
For many companies, artificial intelligence and automation have been a factor in recent work-force reductions, with chatbots being trained to replace workers.
Like Bell and Telus, Rogers offers customers support with a virtual assistant, which it calls “Anna.”
Rogers added fewer wireless subscribers than expected in its fourth quarter amid a price battle with rivals and slowing immigration. The company currently has more than $50-billion in total debt, and a high leverage ratio of 4.5 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
In order to secure approval for its takeover of Shaw, Rogers vowed to create 3,000 new jobs in Western Canada within five years. Speaking to the federal industry committee in December, chief executive officer Tony Staffieri said that since the merger closed in 2023, the company had created 1,800 jobs in the region.
However, company figures suggest that more than 3,000 net Rogers or former Shaw employees had their jobs cut or left the company in the year that the merger took place. It’s not unusual for merging companies in the same sector to cut some jobs, as they look to reduce expenses by finding efficiencies between duplicated roles.
At the time, Rogers said the company’s overall headcount had been reduced by a small percentage, including through a voluntary-departure program, and that the company was committed to creating thousands of jobs in Western Canada.