The Telus headquarters in downtown Vancouver. The company has offered voluntary severance packages to about 700 employees, 500 of which are unionized, according to United Steelworkers Local 1944.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Telus Corp. T-T has offered voluntary severance packages to about 700 employees across Canada, 500 of whom are unionized, according to the union representing those employees.
The latest job cuts target workers in Telus Business Solutions operations in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, Michael Phillips, president of United Steelworkers Local 1944, said in an interview Friday.
Those given offers include technicians that do installation and repair as well as call-centre agents who serve the company’s business accounts, he said. Among that group are 240 technicians in the company’s National Business Delivery division that were not offered packages last February, Mr. Phillips said. At the time, Telus also offered 700 buyouts.
In a statement, Telus spokesperson Richard Gilhooley said the offers are part of “the same voluntary separation program” that Telus implemented in 2025.
These offers were “fuelled by rapid transformation in our industry and the growing customer demand for self-serve solutions,” he said.
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Some technicians given offers were told that sales would become a larger component of their roles, or that they may be redeployed to call-centre roles, USW’s Mr. Phillips said.
“There are many technicians on the business side who are not used to having an aggressive sales component to their role. That may cause them to think twice about whether they want to take the packages this round,” he said.
Workers receiving those severance offers have less than two weeks – until Jan. 21 – to make their decisions, a timeline that Mr. Phillips said was standard for this type of package.
The union represents about 4,000 Telus employees, and Mr. Phillips said the company has offered “virtually all” of them buyouts at one point or another. Of the 700 employees who were given an offer last year, he estimated that based on union records between 15 to 20 per cent – or approximately 100 employees – accepted the package.
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Mr. Gilhooley said Telus anticipates “a very small number” of the team members being canvassed this year will be interested in accepting the offers, and that the company reserves the right to limit the number of departures.
“It is a standard operating practice for us to offer voluntary departure packages to a broad number of team members across the regions we operate in, in an effort to be fair and equitable to those in the impacted work areas,” Mr. Gilhooley said, adding that the offers exceed the requirements of the Canada Labour Code.
Last December, Telus paused its dividend growth because of “extreme circumstances,” as the company’s share price tumbled in November and sent its yield rising.
The company said at the time that it would keep its quarterly payout at the current level until its share price “reflects growth prospects.”
Analysts reacted positively to the news, saying it could help the share price recover.