Canada Post has laid off dozens of managers as the national postal service says it is facing a “critical financial situation.”
“As Canada Post continues to respond to the significant financial and operational challenges it faces, the corporation conducted layoffs earlier this week of almost 50 management employees as part of a corporate-wide restructuring,” the Crown corporation told Global News in an email on Thursday.
The company said about half of the impacted employees were located in Ottawa and the rest were in Toronto and other parts of the country.
“These decisions are never easy, but they reflect the critical financial situation the corporation is currently facing,” Canada Post said.
The Crown corporation added that it also eliminated 20 per cent of its senior roles last month, completing a “restructuring of its senior executive.”
“The layoffs will not impact service to Canadians,” it said.
The cash-strapped company got a financial lifeline from the federal government last month to the tune of up to $1.034 billion in repayable funding through the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Without that short-term financing, the company said in its 2023 annual report that it would completely deplete its cash reserves by the second quarter of 2025.
The layoffs and federal funding come after a month-long strike and another year of losses for the Crown corporation.
In November, Canada Post reported a loss before tax of $315 million in the third quarter of 2024 amid a decline in parcel revenue and volumes.
Canada Post’s Q3 revenue from parcels dipped by 5.8 per cent and volumes declined by six million pieces, or 9.6 per cent, compared with the same time last year.
More than 55,000 Canada Post workers went on strike on Nov. 15, 2024, halting mail and parcel services across the country during the busy holiday shopping season.
Postal workers returned to the job on Dec. 17 after they were ordered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board to end the strike.