Telus Corp. has offered voluntary buyout packages to nearly 700 more employees across British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, including more than 500 United Steelworkers members in its Business Solutions operations, who must decide by Jan. 21, as the company continues shifting customers toward self-serve and digital channels instead of staffed service.
Nearly 700 offers, a Jan. 21 deadline
The United Steelworkers union said Telus offered the packages to nearly 700 workers nationally, more than 500 of them its own members. USW Local 1944 represents about 4,000 Telus employees.
The offers target Telus Business Solutions, the division that serves business customers. Workers who received them have until Jan. 21 to decide, a window of less than two weeks from the announcement, with departures scheduled to begin in mid-February, according to the local.
The affected work is broad. It includes call centres, wireless and wireline operations, network assurance teams and National Business Delivery technicians — the staff who install, repair and support services for business accounts. The union said some employees may have redeployment opportunities, depending on how many people accept a package.
Telus calls it the same program as 2025
Telus spokeswoman Sacha Gudmundsson said the packages are part of the same voluntary separation program the company put in place in 2025, “fuelled by rapid transformation in our industry and the growing customer demand for self-serve solutions.”
The company said the packages are generous, exceed the requirements of the Canada Labour Code, and give employees the option to retire or pursue work elsewhere. It also said offering voluntary departures to a broad group across the regions where it operates is standard practice, intended to be fair to people in the affected areas.
Telus said it expects “a very small number of the team members being canvassed” to accept, and that it reserves the right to limit how many departures it allows. That means the number of offers is not the same as the number of jobs that will ultimately be lost — a distinction that will only become clear after the Jan. 21 deadline.
This is not the first round. Last February, the union said Telus offered buyouts in two waves, first to 545 employees across several departments and then to another 560 workers shortly afterward. The January offers therefore continue a pattern that has now run for close to a year, alongside earlier, larger reductions the company made in previous years.
The union links cuts to service complaints
USW Local 1944 president Michael Phillips argued the reductions will be felt by customers as much as by workers. “Further workforce reductions at Telus will hurt communities and the Canadian economy, and will only exacerbate Canadians’ growing dissatisfaction with the service they’re receiving from telecommunications companies,” he said.
Phillips pointed to the complaint record to support that claim. Complaints from Telus customers to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services rose by 62 per cent in 2025 compared with 2024, he said. “Canadians are not happy with the quality of service they’re getting at the moment, and Telus cutting jobs is not going to help,” he said.
He also directed criticism at Ottawa, which regulates the telecom sector. “The federal government keeps saying we have a productivity problem in Canada. They should be ensuring higher telecom services standards for business, rather than standing by as companies like Telus cut business services,” Phillips said.
The union said it will continue, with labour and political allies, to press the federal government to protect Canadian jobs and the integrity of the national telecom network. For the workers holding offers, however, the immediate question is narrower and personal: accept a voluntary package by Jan. 21, or stay and see how the self-serve shift reshapes the job that remains.
