Some of the hundreds of Rogers employees forced to transition to Ericsson earlier this year are now being laid off. These layoffs follow a unionization attempt, with impacted employees claiming roles are being outsourced.<\/p>\n
In April, Rogers told roughly 400 technical employees and managers to either accept severance packages or sign employment contracts with Ericsson, with Ericsson set to become a contractor for Rogers supporting the carrier\u2019s wireless network. Now, Ericsson is laying off many of those employees, even though Rogers CTO Mark Kennedy had previously told the employees that the transition would not result in job losses.<\/p>\n
According to details from an impacted employee who contacted MobileSyrup,\u00a0roughly 360 of the 400 employees will be laid off in two batches. Ericsson disputes this number, telling\u00a0MobileSyrup\u00a0after publication that \u201c~100\u201d employees were impacted and that the company \u201cdoes not have plans\u201d to lay off more.<\/p>\n
The first batch will be employed until October 31, while the second will remain employed until January 31. In a series of meetings on September 8, the former employee claims some were told they would stay on staff but would be required to help transition their roles to workers in India.<\/p>\n
The former employee said that AI was not a contributing factor, saying the offshoring was instead about lowering labour costs.<\/p>\n
Ericsson spokesperson Nathan Gibson told\u00a0MobileSyrup\u00a0via email that the number of layoffs was \u201cnot accurate\u201d and pointed instead to a Globe and Mail\u00a0article<\/a> detailing layoffs of only 100 employees on October 31. Gibson also said the unionization attempt \u201cwas not a factor\u201d in the announced layoffs.<\/p>\n The Globe\u2018s article, however, only mentions the October layoffs and doesn\u2019t address the January layoffs MobileSyrup\u00a0learned about. Gibson did not answer questions about the January layoffs prior to publication, though he did provide the following statement from Ericsson:<\/p>\n \u201cFor more than 70 years, Ericsson has been committed to serving our customers in Canada and we continue to invest here. Today\u2019s change will bring together our network management services team in Canada with our global operations. We are mindful of the impact on employees and are working to assist them as they make the transition out of the company, including by providing severance packages above market value and making available career transition services and workshops, and other support, immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the impacted employee tells a different story, saying severance packages were \u201cthe bare minimum\u201d despite many of the affected workers having over 20 years of service at Rogers. Moreover, the employee told MobileSyrup\u00a0that Ericsson has not delivered on promised operational enhancements. They claim that Rogers Wireless has already experienced two major outages since Ericsson took over.<\/p>\n MobileSyrup\u00a0reported on a Rogers wireless outage that occurred in June<\/a>. There was also a major internet outage that impacted multiple internet service providers (ISPs) in May<\/a> \u2014 Rogers denied having an outage at the time, but customers reported having no internet or slower-than-usual speeds.<\/p>\n Layoffs came after unionization filing<\/p>\n The\u00a0Globe\u00a0article adds additional wrinkles to the story, noting that about half of the 400 former Rogers employees who transferred to Ericsson attempted to form a union. United Steelworkers 1944 filed a certification application in July with the Federal Labour Board to form a field operations bargaining group to represent about 200 employees, per the\u00a0Globe.\u00a0On Friday, the union filed on behalf of an additional group of employees, which included 37 of the 100 impacted employees.<\/p>\n Gibson did not answer\u00a0MobileSyrup\u2018s questions about why Ericsson chose to lay off employees just months after working with Rogers to transfer the roles.<\/p>\n Rogers similarly did not answer MobileSyrup\u2018s questions about the layoffs. Instead, the company directed us to ask Ericsson about the layoffs, and also pointed to the Globe\u2018s\u00a0article citing only 100 layoffs.<\/p>\n In April, when details of the employee transition first emerged, law firm Samfiru Tumarkin published a blog post (now removed, available through the Wayback Machine<\/a>) noting that Rogers handed employees an ultimatum to join Ericsson or quit following a reported sale of its wireless services support department to Ericsson. At the time, both Rogers and Ericsson denied the sale and did not answer questions about the forced employee transfer.<\/p>\n Rogers has laid off thousands of employees in recent months. In July,\u00a0MobileSyrup\u00a0reported on layoffs impacting roughly 1,000 Canadians who worked for Foundever on a Rogers contract<\/a>, which included tech support, customer care, and call centre positions. Moreover, Rogers laid off roughly 400 online chat agents<\/a> in February, and the\u00a0Globe\u00a0reported last year that the company shed over 3,000 jobs<\/a> following the Shaw merger. Notably, Rogers committed to creating 3,000 jobs in Western Canada<\/a> as part of the merger.<\/p>\n Update Sept. 09, 2025, at 5:54 p.m. ET:\u00a0Added additional details provided by Ericsson after publication.<\/p>\n Header image credit: Shutterstock<\/p>\n