Rogers cuts 900 jobs November 26, 2009
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Rogers Communications announced Thursday it is laying off 900 employees across Canada.
Canada’s biggest cable company, Rogers Communications Inc., is cutting about three per cent of its workforce.(Matt Rourke/Associated Press)
Terrie Tweddle, vice-president of corporate communications at Rogers, told CBC News the job losses “represent a very small percentage of our workforce” and that “the primary focus of the job losses are actually at the executive and management levels.”
Rogers said in October it was moving to streamline operations and to contend with rivals. Tweddle said the layoffs represent three per cent of the company’s total workforce of 30,000 staff across the country.
Independent technology analyst Carmi Levy told CBC News he was “not at all” surprised by the layoffs, given that investors wanted costs cut.
Predicts rivals will cut jobs, too
“Rogers, in particular, as the dominant player, has been under some significant pressure over the last year,” he said. Levy predicted rivals Telus and Bell would also cut staff, especially as competition picks up as new entrants come into the industry in 2010 after an auction of new wireless spectrum.
“What was considered sufficiently lean a year ago or two years ago is no longer lean enough,” he said.
He said Rogers would have to be careful about making any future cuts.
Customer service could be affected
“Because most of these layoffs are focused mostly on middle and upper management, you’re probably not going to notice a whole lot in the short term, but clearly, if this is a precursor to subsequent waves of cutbacks, customer service could potentially be affected in the long run.”
Tweddle said the company would continue to hire people, especially in customer service.
The company owns Canada’s largest wireless phone service, as well as Rogers Cable, numerous publications and broadcast outlets, and the Toronto Blue Jays. In September, the company announced plans to further integrate its cable and wireless businesses to better respond to its customers.
The job cuts come as Rogers faces heated competition from established rivals Bell and Telus and new entrants who plan to offer cheaper wireless airtime packages.
With files from The Canadian Press (more…)
Ottawa proposes tariff cuts for manufacturing imports September 21, 2009
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? ?The federal government is proposing to remove all remaining tariffs on imported raw materials and machinery used in Canadian manufacturing in hopes of reducing the costs of production, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday.
Flaherty said the government will hold public meetings on the tariff proposal this fall.
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to hold public hearings this fall on the government’s plan to remove levies on all manufacturing imports.(Arnold Lim/Canadian Press)
“The tariff-relief initiative now being considered follows from our economic action plan in January and would reduce production costs even further, providing both a short-term boost and a long-term competitive edge for Canadian industry,” he said in a statement.
The imports that would qualify for the tariff break include everything from salt and animal hides to complex optical measuring devices and even nuclear reactors.
The government removed levies on some manufacturing imports in its budget last January. It estimated that would save Canadian businesses $440 million over five years.
The additional cut the government is proposing, which would remove duties on all imports used in manufacturing, would reduce costs to industry by another $250 million or more.
The move is consistent with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s message about reducing trade barriers between the U.S. and Canada this week during his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C.
Greyhound cuts rile some, alarm others September 4, 2009
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Greyhound Canada said Thursday that unless it receives $15 million in government aid, it will shut down bus service in Manitoba and northwest Ontario over the next months, and look at closing transit lines in across the West and North.
Residents of many communities across Canada rely on Greyhound for long-distance transport.(CBC)
The company says government rules force it to operate unprofitable rural routes that have put it in “dire” financial straits, but politicians called the Greyhound announcement a ploy to get taxpayer subsidies.
Greyhound operates in 700 communities across the country, in nearly every province and territory. In many of those area, the bus line is the principal provider of long-distance transportation.
Politicians, community leaders and travellers reacted with a mix of dismay and dismissal to Thursday’s news. Here’s what some of them had to say.
Bob Hykaway, vice-president, Amalgamated Transit Union, Calgary
Should bus service be discontinued in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, it could have major impacts on people living there, said Bob Hykaway, a Calgary-based vice-president with the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents Greyhound Canada drivers.
“For the people up in the North ? people using the [bus route] for medical runs, their drugs and things like that ? this is going to stop, and that’s a big impact. That’s very severe for us,” he said.
Hykaway said the union is talking with territorial ministers and deputy ministers on the issue.
“They’re trying to get together, they’re talking to the federal government to try and do something,” he said.
Sam Nabi, university student, Winnipeg
“It’s the cheapest option a lot of the time,” Sam Nabi, a 19-year-old university student, said in Winnipeg of riding the bus. “I’m familiar with this system now that I’ve been using it for a while. It’s usually my go-to option.”
Nabi is from Whitby, Ont., and was making his way back home on Greyhound after spending the summer in Alberta.
“I am very surprised. I thought it was always there. There are signs in some of the terminals saying, ‘Greyhound here for 75 years,’ and I don’t know what other options there would be.”
Governments at all levels should do whatever they can to stop the bus line from pulling out, he said.
“It should be a priority. If the federal government needs to take ownership of Greyhound to keep it alive, then I think that’s totally appropriate.”
Jim Bradley, transportation minister, Ontario
“The motor coach industry in Ontario is regulated by the Highway Transportation Board under the Private Vehicles Act,” Ontario Transport Minister Jim Bradley said in a perfunctory statement issued Thursday afternoon. “Under existing legislation, to discontinue service, Greyhound must comply with the requirements under the PVA.
“Greyhound has fulfilled its obligations under the PVA to provide advance notice of service discontinuance. We recognize the current economic downturn has impacted passenger volumes on many services offered by public transportation operators.
“Greyhound has advised that it is working with other companies to provide replacement services. We are hopeful that another private sector carrier will seek the opportunity to provide bus service in this corridor.”
Glenn Andersen, mayor of St. Paul, Alta.
Many residents of St. Paul, Alta., a community of 5,400 people, rely on the Greyhound bus for trips to Edmonton, 200 kilometres to the southwest, Mayor Glenn Andersen said.
“A lot of people do. The ones that can’t afford a vehicle, single people or somebody who just doesn’t drive. They don’t drive to the city, they take the Greyhound,” he said Thursday. “And a lot of shipping from Greyhound through from larger centres to St. Paul. comes that way, as a more economical way of shipping, and that would be devastating to St Paul.
“Anytime you lose something, that’s not good for your community and that would be a loss to not only to St Paul but the whole northeast region.”
Lionel Cloutier, mayor of Ignace, Ont.
Lionel Cloutier, mayor of Ignace ? a town of about 1,400 people 250 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay ? said the route closures are “very distressing, very bad news for northwestern Ontario.”
“A lot of people rely on the Greyhound bus for not just transportation, but also for parts and emergency stuff that we need,” he said.
John Baird, federal transport minister
“Greyhound is a Texas-based multinational. Their actions are heavy-handed and clearly an attempt to bully the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario,” federal Transport Minister John Baird said in a media scrum. “They’re seeking tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers money as a subsidy.”
Baird said the regulatory problems are a provincial issue.
“The [federal] government has been out of this for 50 years,” he said. “And we’ve certainly got our hands full with aviation and with Via [Rail].”
Stuart Kendrick, senior vice-president, Greyhound Canada
“The decision to cease our operations in northwestern Ontario and Manitoba was a very difficult one. We have repeatedly asked the federal and provincial governments to change the existing legislative and regulatory regimes that govern intercity bus operations,” Stuart Kendrick, senior vice-president of Greyhound Canada, said in a statement Thursday.
“Our financial situation is dire and we are no longer in a position to absorb losses that are almost solely attributable to government policies.”
Kendrick said Greyhound is forced to operate unprofitable routes to remote communities and to subsidize those routes with income from profitable lines and the company’s parcel delivery service.
“Despite numerous attempts over the years to adjust this business model in order to gain a profitable footing, Greyhound Canada has now run out of options,” Kendrick said.
Bill Swan and Jesse House, passengers, Edmonton
In Edmonton, passenger Bill Swan said his daughter travels frequently to the city from northern Alberta.
“Greyhound is basically the only way for people to get from town to town,” he said.
Jesse House, a kidney transplant patient, said he uses the bus to get to medical appointments from Grande Prairie, Alta. He pays $79 for the bus trip, but a plane ride would cost almost $500.
“The bus is the only affordable way for me to come for my medical appointments. I can’t drive because of my condition.”
With files from The Canadian Press (more…)
Teck cuts Highland copper production forecast June 28, 2009
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Teck Resources Ltd. has cut its 2009 and 2010 copper production estimate from Highland Valley by millions of pounds because of geotechnical issues, the company said Thursday.
The cuts will amount to about 35 million pounds in the second half of 2009 and 115 million pounds in 2010, reducing total production from all sources to less than 700 million pounds in 2009 and 755 million in 2010.
The cut in 2010 is about 13 per cent.
The problems were only identified recently, the company said in a news release. Outside consultants hired to study the issues are expected to report in the fourth quarter.
Teck’s revised forecast for Highland Valley, near Kamloops, B.C., is 258 million pounds. The 2010 production figure is now 187 million pounds.
With copper currently trading at about $2.30 US a pound, the value of the lost production is about $80 million this year and $265 million in 2010.
Highland accounted for about 11 per cent of Teck’s first quarter revenue of $1.71 billion (Cdn).
Teck Class B shares slid 3 cents to $18.47 in TSX trading. It was the only issue in the diversified metals sub-index to drop.
Tax cuts impact quality of life: study April 16, 2009
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Tax cuts could diminish the standard of living for the vast majority of Canadians who enjoy the public services that they fund, according to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released on Wednesday.
The majority of Canadian households enjoy a higher quality of life because of the public services their taxes fund, the study argues.
According to the report, Canada’s Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending, the cost of the public services that a typical Canadian household uses annually is the equivalent of about 50 per cent of its annual income.
“What passes for a tax cut debate in Canada is really only half the debate,” said study co-author Hugh Mackenzie, an economist.
Taxes pay for services that hold a value in the daily lives of Canadians, Mackenzie said.
“The suggestion we often hear, that taxes are a burden, hides the reality that our taxes fund public services that make Canada’s standard of living among the very best,” he said.
The study uses Statistics Canada data on government revenues and expenditures to compare public spending in categories including health care, education, social services, old-age security benefits and employment insurance. It also looks at data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information and government figures regarding labour and household incomes.
Using the statistics, the report finds that the average per capita benefit from public services in Canada in 2006 was about $16,952.
Mackenzie and company also argue that about 80 per cent of Canadians would have a higher standard of living if the GST hadn’t been cut, and that 75 per cent of Canadians would be better off if their provincial governments invested in public services, such as health care and education, rather than income tax cuts.
“The overall impact of tax cuts ? and the cuts in public services that accompany them ? has not been addressed in any substantive way,” the study states.
“Tax cuts are always made to sound like they’re free money to middle income Canadians. They are anything but,” Mackenzie said. “We’re far better off with the public services our taxes fund than we are with tax cuts.”
Any reduction in income tax results in an equivalent constraint on public spending, the study says, and about three in four Canadians suffer from cuts to public spending.
Households with incomes under $110,000 would have been better off if the federal government had not cut the GST by two percentage points and had transferred the money to local governments, according to the paper.
For households with incomes between $110,000 and $200,000, the net gain of the GST cut does not exceed $50 per year, after factoring in the loss of publicly funded services, the study finds.
Overall, the tax cuts implemented in Canada in the last 15 years have had the net effect of reducing the living standards of most Canadians, the reports says.
The study also finds that the number of public services used by Canadians appears to increase as household income and size increase. This is particularly true for households that have children who are accessing publicly funded elementary and secondary schools and seniors who are more likely to use the public health-care system.
“Families with young children will tend to benefit relatively more from the health-care system, whereas families with older children will tend to benefit from the public education system to a greater extent than other types of families,” the study states.
New York Times Co. threatens to close Boston Globe, wants big cuts April 7, 2009
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The Boston Globe, one of the most respected newspapers in the U.S., could be shut down if its employees don’t make major contract concessions, according to union leaders.
A report by the Globe published Saturday says executives with the New York Times Co., the Globe’s owner, wants the newspaper’s 13 unions to accept pay cuts and reduced company contributions to health insurance and pension plans.
Union leaders say they were told the whole operation could be shut down unless the unions agree to $20 million US worth of concessions.
“We all know the newspaper industry to going through great transition and loss,” said Ralph Giallanella of Teamsters Local 259. “They’re serious.”
Giallanella said “hundreds of jobs are at stake,” adding that the unions may have no other choice.
Daniel Totten, head of the Boston Newspaper Guild ? the Globe’s biggest union ? said workers have 30 days to accept the demands or see the paper closed.
The news comes in light of massive shutdowns and layoffs in the newspaper industry in North America, especially in the U.S.
Bankruptcy filings afflict U.S. newspaper industry
The Rocky Mountain News in Denver and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are just two of the many newspapers that have ceased print publication. The P-I continues to have an online edition.
Several newspaper conglomerates have filed for bankruptcy, including The Tribune Co., which publishes the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times; Philadelphia Newspapers; and the Sun-Times Media Group.
Meanwhile, other major newspapers are on the critical list, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
The Globe has already seen 50 full-time jobs chopped.
According to Saturday’s article, the Globe is projected to lose $85 million US in 2009, after posting an estimated $50-million loss in 2008.
“The New York Times Co. has its back up against the wall and it’s looking for ways to survive.? The Globe has become a drag on earnings,” Lou Ureneck, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University’s College of Communications, said in the article.
The Globe, the 14th-largest paper in the U.S., was created in 1872 by a group of local businessmen. In 1993, it was sold to The New York Times Co.
The paper has garnered 20 Pulitzer prizes and is considered an integral part of Boston, and New England, life.
“The Boston Globe helped build Boston,” said the city’s mayor, Thomas Menino. “The city would lose a vital institution.”
Queen’s University cuts programs, 47 faculty jobs March 27, 2009
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The dean of Arts and Sciences at Queen’s University says the school is going to have to rethink the way it’s offering education because of new budget constraints.
The dean, Alistair MacLean, said that every department has been asked to shave at least 15 per cent from all of its expenditures as part of new budget cuts.
“We’re going to have to stop doing some things we really value because we can no longer afford to do them,” he said.
MacLean said officials hope to see 47 faculty members resign or take early retirement and then those employees won’t be replaced.
The Queen’s Alma Mater Society, an undergraduate student group, says the school is also cutting several academic programs and departments ? a move they say will affect the quality of education the school can offer.
Among the programs being cut, it said, are Spanish, Italian and German.
MacLean said the faculty shares the group’s concerns.
“When I go in to speak to recruitment meetings of students, one of the things I’ve always emphasized to them is we will guarantee you your choice of any first year course you want,” said MacLean. “Now, we’re no longer going to be able to live up to that because we no longer have the resources to guarantee everybody that.”
A spokesperson for the Alma Mater Society said student organizations across Ontario will continue to lobby the provincial government to put more money into Ontario’s universities.
GM Canada says ‘unprecedented cuts’ will save $2B March 26, 2009
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General Motors will save $1 billion annually through salaried workforce cuts in Canada and other business changes, as well as $1 billion in future “legacy” costs ?- mainly pension and health-care payments ? through a deal with the Canadian Auto Workers union.
In a letter to a parliamentary subcommittee charged with studying the auto industry, GM Canada president Arturo Elias said the company has taken “unprecedented” steps to reduce costs.
He said executive and white-collar employees have made sacrifices. The company’s executives have taken a 10 per cent salary cut, there will be no bonuses this year and all salaried employees have seen “very significant benefit reductions.”
In addition to the $2-billion saving, the company said it has reduced its hourly labour cost to a level competitive with non-unionized automakers in the United States.
Elias didn’t say how much that will save the company.
GM saved about $900 million in a new contract with the CAW last year that froze wages for three years. Analysts estimate the new contract will reduce costs by another $7 an hour per employee.
The contract freezes wages until 2012 and suspends cost-of-living adjustments for wages and pensions. It also reduces paid time off by 40 hours a year per employee, scraps an annual $1,700 bonus and cuts company contributions to union-sponsored programs by one-third.
Under the agreement, CAW members will also contribute $30 a month to their health benefits.
Chrysler Canada, which is in its own negotiations with the CAW, has characterized the GM agreement as “unacceptable” for its purposes and has said it needs to cut its labour costs by about $20 an hour to be competitive.
But CAW president Ken Lewenza has called that number “utterly false.”
Chrysler and GM must submit finalized restructuring plans, including new labour contracts, to the federal and Ontario governments by the end of March to receive the billions in aid they have requested.
Chrysler has said that if it can’t reach an agreement with the CAW it will be forced to close its Canadian operations.
Bank of Canada cuts key borrowing rate again March 5, 2009
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The Bank of Canada cut a key interest rate on Tuesday, dropping its target for the overnight rate by one-half of a percentage point to 0.5 per cent.
The rate cut had been widely forecast by economists. The bank has now reduced interest rates by four percentage points since it commenced the latest cycle of easing in December 2007.
The rate cut comes one day after Statistics Canada said the economy contracted at an annualized rate of 3.4 per cent in the last three months of 2008. The Bank of Canada had been projecting a 2.3 per cent rate of decline.
Monday’s negative report left economists predicting a weaker first quarter this year, with annualized declines of five to six per cent forecast.
In its Jan. 22 update to its outlook on the Canadian economy, the Bank of Canada said real gross domestic product for 2009 is projected to decline by 1.2 per cent, followed by a rebound of 3.8 per cent in 2010.
Many critics charged the central bank’s forecast was overly optimistic, but Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney has defended the outlook vigorously.
In the commentary accompanying Tuesday’s rate decision, the central bank said data for the fourth quarter of 2008 and other indicators point “to a sharper decline in Canadian economic activity and a larger output gap through the first half of 2009 than projected in January.”
Other measures considered
With the target for the overnight rate approaching zero, the bank also said Tuesday it is considering other measures to bolster the weak economy.
“Given the low level of the target for the overnight rate, the bank is refining the approach it would take to provide additional monetary stimulus, if required, through credit and quantitative easing,” the bank said, adding that it would provide more details in its April monetary policy report.
That could turn the central bank into a buyer on credit markets in a bid to make corporate debt cheaper.
“Today’s bold statement highlights [the] bank’s nervousness that the typical policy tools will not be sufficient to put the economy back on a solid growth path,” said RBC assistant chief economist Dawn Desjardins.
“The inclusion of the reference to quantitative and credit easing indicates that the bank is keeping its options open as it works to nurse the economy back to health and that policymakers here are ready to follow the lead of the United States, the United Kingdom and others in moving to more innovative ways to attack the problems,” Desjardins said.
The move by the central bank to lower lending costs was quickly followed by several of the country’s big chartered banks, as they cut their prime rates by one-half of a percentage to 2.5 per cent.
