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Bell Canada’s parent company is slashing nearly 700 jobs as part of organizational changes that began last year.
BCE Inc. said the cuts affect around one per cent of its total workforce, or 690 positions, which includes approximately 230 unionized roles.
The company said most eligible unionized employees are being offered voluntary separation packages.
“Organizational changes began late last year to better align the team structure with our strategy, and the current workforce reductions continue that work,” said spokesman Luc Levasseur in an email.
“These changes are part of our ongoing business operations and reflect several initiatives, including the migration of customers to a more resilient, easier-to-maintain fibre network and ongoing operating efficiencies.”
Levasseur said the latest workforce reductions reflect BCE’s three-year plan “to drive sustainable growth in a highly competitive market,” which the company outlined at its investor day last October.
At the time, the company announced a goal of finding $1.5 billion in total cost savings by 2028 through a “companywide transformation and continued focus on operational efficiencies.”
Last November, in a separate round of job cuts, BCE let go of 650 manager positions at Bell and around 40 other jobs at its Bell Media subsidiary.
No unionized employees had been laid off at that time, the company said. The media division cuts were “predominantly” in corporate departments.
In 2024, BCE slashed nine per cent of its workforce, affecting about 4,800 jobs, as part of a shakeup that also saw it offload dozens of radio stations and end multiple television newscasts.
That came after the elimination of around 1,300 positions — about three per cent of its workforce at the time — in June 2023.
Last month, BCE reported a profit attributable to common shareholders of $616 million or 66 cents per diluted share in its latest quarter. That compared with a profit of $630 million or 68 cents per diluted share in the first quarter of 2025.
During an earnings call, BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said the company has raised its revenue target for its growing AI business by one-third as it moves forward with plans to build a cluster of data centres.
BCE now expects to generate around $2 billion in revenue from its portfolio of AI-powered enterprise solutions by 2028. That’s up from its previous objective of $1.5 billion in revenue over three years.
Along with fibre, wireless, and digital media, the company has pointed to AI-powered enterprise solutions as a key pillar of the three-year plan.
