Monthly Summary
July 2026
Canadian plant-based meat startup No Meat Factory is closing its $19M facility in Stanwood, Washington and laying off 123 employees. The closure consolidates operations to its British Columbia facility as the company faces challenges from the contracting North American plant-based market.
Cabico & Co, a custom cabinet manufacturer, laid off approximately 200 of its 700-person workforce across its Coaticook, Quebec and St. Catharines, Ontario plants. The layoffs were caused by 25 percent U.S. tariffs and a flood of foreign imports that have reduced the company's operations to half capacity despite a $25 million expansion investment over five years.
Microsoft laid off 1,600 employees across numerous video game studios including Xbox, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, Zenimax, and Obsidian. The unions CWA and CWA Canada filed unfair labor practice complaints alleging Microsoft failed to bargain with the union over the layoffs as required during ongoing collective agreement negotiations.
London Drugs announced the elimination of approximately 80 full-time and part-time supervisor positions across its retail chain in B.C. The restructuring affects nearly every store location and represents the company's first major workforce reduction of this nature.
Free Press Community Review, a Canadian weekly free newspaper in Manitoba, closed with two layoffs and two reassignments. The closure was driven by the collapse of the flyer distribution business after Canada's largest printer began bundling flyers directly to households rather than using community newspapers.
Postmedia conducted multiple layoffs across its Canadian newspaper operations. The article describes 90 layoffs following newsroom mergers in Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton after purchasing the Sun chain, and 60 layoffs following the 2024 purchase of SaltWire and Halifax Herald, for a combined total of 150 layoffs mentioned in specific incidents. Additionally, in 2023 Postmedia announced plans to lay off 11% of its editorial employees, and between 2016-2020 laid off 1,200 employees.
Global Empire Corporation closed its call centre in Liverpool, Nova Scotia in March 2024, laying off 74 employees without proper notice. The Nova Scotia Labour Board ordered the company to pay approximately $194,000 to 69 of the terminated employees, and dismissed the company's appeal of this decision on July 10, 2026.
Bethesda Game Studios union workers in Montreal are planning a major rally action on July 15 to protest recent Xbox mass layoffs. A total of 440 union positions were eliminated across Bethesda and ZeniMax unions during the layoffs.
Rogers Sports & Media shut down six radio stations across Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, and Kitchener, resulting in 230 job cuts. The closures included Sportsnet 650 and News 1130 in Vancouver, Sportsnet 960 in Calgary, and 95.7 NewsRadio Halifax among others.
Rogers announced a nationwide layoff of 230 jobs as part of a cost-cutting measure affecting its media operations. The cuts include the shuttering of six radio stations across Canada.
OpenText laid off two percent of its global workforce, approximately 400 employees, as part of ongoing organizational planning. The company, headquartered in Kitchener-Waterloo, noted that changes in Canada were minimal with the Canadian employee base growing six percent over the past year.
Xbox is eliminating 3,200 jobs (20% of workforce) as part of the most significant restructure in Xbox history, with 1,600 employees cut immediately and another 1,600 over the next 12 months. The restructuring includes divesting from five studios including Montreal-based Compulsion Games, which will go independent with runway funding and ownership of its games.