Volvo cutting 10% of white-collar jobs in Canada, U.S.

Volvo is laying off more than 10 per cent of its white-collar workers in Canada and the United States. The job cuts are part of the car manufacturer’s drive to cut global costs and find efficiencies.

The company expects the job cuts to cost approximately $88 million, which includes severance payments to affected employees. Volvo will also be offering early retirement packages to some workers.

“There’s not any area of the business that is not impacted,” said Volvo Car USA and Canada president Michael Cottone, in an interview with Auto News.

“We have [many] different reports and jobs, and we’re looking at them to make sure these are the ones that give us the biggest impact and put our resources toward them.”

Volvo has already trimmed its Silicon Valley Tech Center and Southern California design centre staff by at least 75 per cent. This latest round of layoffs follows the auto company’s decision to slash its Swedish workforce by six per cent, or 1,300 jobs.

“It is not so much a cost-cutting program as more of a culture toward cost-consciousness… by doing things differently and more efficiently,” said Volvo chief executive Jim Rowan.

“It behooves us as we grow to be able to put that in early.”

Volvo is planning to switch to selling only EVs by 2030 — a move that the auto manufacturer says will be expensive.

Major layoffs continue

The latest round of job cuts at Volvo comes amid a flurry of layoffs in 2023.

Major North American companies, including Roku, RBC, Dell, Telus, Amazon, Microsoft, Ritual, and Meta, are significantly scaling back their staffing levels as they continue to navigate challenging economic conditions.

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Termination agreements for Volvo employees

In Canada, non-unionized employees at the automaker are owed full severance pay when they lose their jobs due to downsizing, corporate restructuring, or the closure of the business.

This includes individuals working full-time, part-time, or hourly in Ontario, Alberta, and B.C.

People working “on contract” or as a contractor may also be owed severance pay — given that many employees in Canada are often misclassified as independent contractors.

Severance can be as much as 24 months’ pay, depending on a number of factors.

LEARN MORE
• Rights to severance for provincially regulated employees
• Severance entitlements during mass layoffs
• Severance packages in a recession

WATCH: Employment lawyer Lior Samfiru explains what rights employees have if they are being fired or let go on an episode of the Employment Law Show.

Before you accept any severance offer, have an experienced employment lawyer at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP review it and your employment contract.

We can tell you if what you have been provided is fair and how to get proper severance if it falls short of what you are actually owed.

If you don’t receive the full amount, which happens often, you have been wrongfully dismissed and are entitled to compensation.

In some cases, employers pressure staff into accepting poor severance packages, such as imposing a deadline for accepting the offer.

Non-unionized employees in Canada have up to two years from the date of their dismissal to pursue a claim for full severance pay.