Toronto (Feb 8) – In an open letter to the Bell team, President and CEO Mirko Bibic announced that the company will be cutting 4,800 jobs which represents 9 per cent of its workforce.
“I wanted everyone to hear from me directly about these changes. Respect and transparency throughout the process is important,” Bibic wrote. “Over the coming weeks, we will implement significant reductions on our team at all levels of the company, reducing our workforce by approximately 4,800 positions, representing 9% of our workforce.”
A difficult economy and regulatory decisions were said to be responsible for the business restructuring and consequent layoffs.
“… 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,” Bibic’s letter explained.
“At Bell Media, our advertising revenues declined by $140 million in 2023 compared to 2022. Across Bell Media’s news operations, we continue to incur over $40 million in annual operating losses despite having the most-watched network of local TV stations,” Bibic stated.
“This means organizational changes for our team and streamlining where we can, while finding ways to free up capital and resources to invest in new areas and to better serve our customers,” he wrote.
Bell is selling 45 of its 103 regional radio stations. The radio stations being sold are in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, according to a report from the Canadian Press.
Bibic said the company will use vacancies and natural attrition to minimize layoffs as much as possible.
