Montreal-based financial services conglomerate Desjardins is laying off almost 400 people.
Move is the latest by a Canadian bank to trim costs
Montreal-based financial services conglomerate Desjardins is laying off almost 400 people.
The company told CBC News in a statement that it had made the “difficult decision” to cut about 0.6 per cent of its workforce due to the “current economic context.”
The job cuts were first reported by French-language newspaper Le Journal.
The cuts represent about 0.6 per cent of Desjardins’s current head count of 58,000 people. Most of the cuts will be among those who work either in Montreal or Lévis, Que.
Some of the job cuts will come through natural attrition, where the company will simply not replace workers who voluntarily leave. And more will come from re-evaluating the need of currently open positions.
The move is the latest sign of a slowdown in Canada’s financial services sector, as Scotiabank announced on Wednesday that it is laying off about three per cent of its workforce.
In August, Royal Bank announced that it has recently laid off more than 600 people, and was planning to cut about twice that in the current quarter.
More to come.