Shaw Communications is cutting about 500 jobs as part of a restructuring.
Shaw president Peter Bissonnette said Wednesday the move will eliminate jobs across Western Canada, including a large number of managers and supervisors, as the company consolidates 18 operating regions into seven.
“The overheads associated with those regions have been reduced,” said Bissonnette, who added that the cuts include about 150 managers and supervisors. Shaw has more than 13,000 employees.
Among the operations affected will be a call centre in Saskatoon that will be closed.
Bissonnette said the company has grown quickly in recent years in the internet and telephone segments of its business.
“We’ve looked at that and said the cost effectiveness of our company is really important and we need to start really looking at operating income and the kinds of overhead that we acquired in that growth,” he said.
The cuts will not affect the company’s recently acquired Global TV assets.
“They went through a large restructuring even before we acquired them,” said Bissonnette.
In January, the company reported a quarterly profit of $20.3 million or four cents per share for the quarter ended Nov. 30 compared with earnings of $114.2 million or 26 cents per share a year ago.
Revenue in what was the company’s first quarter of its 2011 financial year totalled $1.08 billion, up from $905.9 million.
The quarterly results included a charge of $139 million related to new programming, digital transmission towers and other requirements of the CRTC decision approving Shaw’s acquisition of the Canwest assets.
Shaw also recorded $58 million in acquisition, integration and restructuring costs in the quarter.
Shaw has been battling rival Telus Corp.’s foray into its core TV business. The Vancouver-based phone company offers land-line and satellite TV services to a customer base that largely overlaps Shaw’s.
