Canada’s Bell to Cut 4,800 Jobs

Bell Canada is undertaking its largest workforce restructuring initiative in nearly 30 years, reducing approximately 4,800 positions, or 9 percent of all employees, in 2024.

The company began implementing a restructuring in June “in light of the difficult operating environment we were facing,” said Mirko Bibic, president and CEO of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada. “In many ways, the environment has become more difficult and further restructuring across Bell is therefore needed to succeed…. We continue to face a difficult economy and government and regulatory decisions that undermine investment in our networks, fail to support our media business in a time of crisis and fail to level the playing field with global tech giants. Of particular concern is a recent decision by the CRTC forcing Bell to provide third-party resellers access to our high-speed fibre network before we have even had an opportunity to recoup our multi-billion dollar investment. As I’ve shared before, at Bell Canada every year we can expect to lose over C$250 million in legacy phone revenues. At Bell Media, our advertising revenues declined by C$140 million in 2023 compared to 2022. Across Bell Media’s news operations, we continue to incur over C$40 million in annual operating losses despite having the most-watched network of local TV stations.”

Bibic added that it means organizational changes for the team and streamlining where possible while finding ways to free up capital and resources to invest in new areas and to better serve customers.

Over the coming weeks, the company will implement significant reductions on its team at all levels, reducing the workforce by approximately 4,800 positions, representing 9 percent.

Where possible, the plan is to use vacancies and natural attrition to minimize the impact on the team. “We have already adopted other measures, including reducing our capex over this year and next by over C$1 billion following the CRTC’s recent decision, reducing our real estate footprint, continuing to cut back on travel and expenses, and ending some of our long-standing partnerships,” Bibic said.

The plan is to reduce capital expenditures by over C$1 billion over the next two years, including a minimum C$500 million year-over-year decrease in 2024 alone.