People walk by a Rogers store in downtown Vancouver in April. Rogers did not confirm the number of outsourced employees affected by its decision to end the contract with Foundever.Isabella Falsetti/The Globe and Mail
Rogers Communications Inc. RCI-B-T has ended its contract with an external customer-service company, resulting in hundreds of job losses as the telecom giant embraces digital tools, according to two Toronto-based employment law firms.
Rogers previously outsourced some of its customer service roles to Foundever, a Luxembourg-headquartered company that provides call centres and other technical support, with about 150,000 employees globally.
“We’ve been hearing from dozens of Foundever employees who say they’re among roughly 900 people caught up in a major round of layoffs, reportedly sparked by Rogers pulling its contract and shifting to AI-powered chat support,” said Lior Samfiru, employment lawyer and co-founding partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP.
He said it is a mix of both short- and long-serving staff who are now out of a job.
Andrew Monkhouse, managing partner of Monkhouse Law Employment Lawyers, said his firm has also recently been contacted by Foundever employees.
All of the employees working for Rogers through the company were based in Canada. Rogers did not say how many employees would be affected.
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“As customers increasingly use digital tools and self-services, we’ve made some changes to our vendor mix. Similar to other providers, we continue to serve our customers across the country using our internal team and third-party partners,” said a statement by Rogers spokesperson Zac Carreiro.
Foundever employs more than 3,500 people across Canada, including employees in customer-service, back-office support, sales and retention, and technical support, according to its website.
In a statement, Foundever said that to date, this change has affected a small percentage of its Canadian work force, and that it will reassign employees where possible.
Foundever would not confirm the total number of employees that will be cut as the contract winds down.
Mr. Carreiro said there is “no impact” to the company’s internal customer-service team.
However, earlier this year, Rogers laid off customer-service staff related to its online chat option in multiple provinces, citing a reduction in demand for online chat services. The company has launched “Anna,” a virtual chatbot used to assist customers.
Mr. Samfiru said his firm is seeing a growing number of companies across Canada “leaning on automation to cut costs.”
In 2023, after its acquisition of Shaw, Rogers said it was committing to a 100-per-cent Canada-based customer-service work force, and said it planned to hire 1,000 additional agents in the country.
When asked about the 2023 commitment, Mr. Carreiro said in a statement that “the majority of agents” are based in Canada. That indicates Rogers has stepped back from its domestic work-force commitment.
The company did not say whether it had hired the 1,000 additional agents as planned.
In April, Rogers told about 400 technicians and managers that they had the option to sign a contract to accept employment with telecom equipment maker Ericsson, which would then act as a contractor for Rogers, or take a severance package.
Company figures suggest that more than 2,000 Rogers employees had their jobs cut or left the company in 2024, and 3,000 Rogers or Shaw employees left in 2023, the year the merger took place.