Research in Motion lays off almost a quarter of workforce in Halifax
Nova Scotia’s economic development minister says Research in Motion has cut almost a quarter of its Halifax-area staff.
Percy Paris says he learned earlier today that the smartphone maker is laying off about 95 employees.
Paris says more than 400 people work at the Halifax location and the cuts are significant.
He says he hopes the layoffs are temporary but adds that the government will do what it can to provide support to the laid off workers, though he didn’t specify.
According to one former RIM employee, she was sent an email the previous night to attend a meeting in the morning, specifically on the first floor, noting that:
“We’ve had all the telltale signs that more layoffs were coming and this really caused anxiety and stress among the workforce. You know from the email that if your meeting is on the first floor, it’s not a pep talk. It’s inevitable it will be a presentation of your package.”
Apparently during lay off day the employees who were being cut were gathered into a meeting room and were notified of their termination via teleconference by a RIM exec in Waterloo.
The former employee said “It’s kind of like leading the lambs to the slaughter. You’re brought into a room with other people, some of whom you don’t know because they’re part of other teams. There is no individual attention, so you don’t really feel free to express your concerns and feelings or ask questions.”
Immediately following the teleconference the employees were escorted out of the building.
“I mean no disrespect to the company, because they treated me very well for the number of years that I was there and I still love my BlackBerry and went out and bought a new one right away because I can’t live without it, but the way they’ve conducted these layoffs has been incredibly disrespectful,” the former employee said.
A spokeswoman for RIM said:
The cuts are part of the company’s June 28 announcement that they would be reducing their global workforce by 5,000.
