An alliance of Canadian telecom staff have denounced the offshoring of telecom jobs, warning that telecom corporations transport jobs abroad can have damaging impacts on Canada.
The Canadian Telecommunications Employees Alliance (CTWA) is a coalition of three of Canada’s largest unions, Unifor, CUPE, and the United Steelworkers of Canada (USW), and represents over 1.3 million staff, together with 32,000 within the telecom sector.
In a launch printed by Unifor, the CTWA known as for laws from the federal authorities “to guard Canadians’ jobs, privateness, and the safety of Canada’s telecommunications infrastructure.”
The CTWA mentioned that Canadian telecoms have outsourced virtually 20,000 jobs to different nations during the last decade, together with to the U.S., India, the Philippines, Egypt, and extra.
However whereas the job losses are dangerous, it’s not the one consequence. The alliance additionally warned that the offshoring jeopardizes Canadian knowledge as a result of the subcontractors utilized in different nations aren’t topic to Canada’s guidelines and protections. It additionally raised issues about Canada’s safety and sovereignty by permitting international entry to important communications infrastructure.
The warning comes as we’ve seen Canada’s largest telecom gamers constantly shed jobs over the previous couple of years. Simply final month, Telus provided buyouts to virtually 700 staff throughout Canada, together with over 500 members of the USW. The corporate additionally provided buyouts in February 2025, and in 2023 laid off 6,000 staff.
Bell has additionally been shedding staff, together with practically 700 vacation layoffs. In February 2025, Bell provided voluntary separation to 1,200 union staff, and a yr earlier than that, the corporate lower one other 4,800 jobs.
Lastly, there’s Rogers. MobileSyrup reported final yr that Rogers ended a contract with an organization known as Foundever, resulting in roughly 1,000 layoffs impacting name centre staff. That builds on 400 on-line chat brokers the corporate laid off in February 2025, and hundreds extra jobs misplaced due to Rogers’ merger with Shaw (regardless of the corporate signing a dedication to create 3,000 jobs in Western Canada with a view to safe the merger).
Furthermore, final yr, Rogers compelled roughly 400 technical staff to signal employment contracts with Ericsson, just for Ericsson to put off a portion of these staff with a view to transition their roles to staff in India. The layoffs got here after the staff tried to unionize, although Ericsson denied that that was an element. Conservative ministers known as for the Liberal authorities to halt the layoffs over nationwide safety issues.
Header picture credit score: Shutterstock
Supply: Unifor
MobileSyrup could earn a fee from purchases made through our hyperlinks, which helps fund the journalism we offer free on our web site. These hyperlinks don’t affect our editorial content material. Help us right here.
Elevate your perspective with NextTech Information, the place innovation meets perception.
Uncover the most recent breakthroughs, get unique updates, and join with a worldwide community of future-focused thinkers.
Unlock tomorrow’s developments at the moment: learn extra, subscribe to our e-newsletter, and grow to be a part of the NextTech group at NextTech-news.com
