TORONTO – Hudson’s Bay says it has notified about 200 of its staff working in corporate roles that their employment will be terminated next week.
Company spokesperson Tiffany Bourré said Friday that the move is a result of the restructuring process underway at the department store chain after it filed for creditor protection earlier in the month.
“This is a difficult reality of the restructuring process, and we are committed to treating associates impacted by these changes with respect and support,” she said in a statement confirming Friday’s cuts.
Bourré said the 200 or so jobs will be eliminated as of April 4.
Court documents filed as part of the creditor protection process show the company had 533 workers in corporate roles at the end of February.
Some 455 — the bulk of Hudson’s Bay’s corporate workers — were in Ontario, where the company has a head office in Toronto. Twelve were in B.C. with another dozen in Quebec. Seven corporate workers were in Alberta, two were in Manitoba and one was in Saskatchewan.
The job cuts come as Canada’s oldest company is liquidating all but six of its 80 Hudson’s Bay, 13 Saks Off 5th and three Saks Fifth Avenue locations.
The creditor protection process could see more stores pulled from the liquidation — or added, depending on how much cash the retailer can raise.
How long the company, which has fallen behind on rent and merchandise payments, has to save the remaining six stores was expected to be outlined in a restructuring order an Ontario Superior Court judge was due to rule on Friday.
The liquidation process Hudson’s Bay began on March 24 will see the company’s workforce of 9,364 significantly pared down.
Many of those workers will likely lose their jobs in mid-June, when the 355-year-old company’s stores are due to finish liquidating.
Some staff will get some extra money for sticking around through that period.
That’s because Hudson’s Bay got court approval earlier in the month for a key employee retention plan, a common practice in creditor protection proceedings where bonuses are paid to select staff who stay on through the liquidation period, so the company doesn’t fold for lack of leadership.
Court documents show such payments will be made around Sept. 30 to 121 staff, including 94 store managers, 10 workers in senior management roles and 17 in other “non-store” jobs.
The payments will collectively total no more than $3 million, though the court has sealed a list naming which employees will receive a portion of the cash.
Unions including Unifor, which represents some Bay employees, deemed the payments “disgraceful, enraging, and outrageous.”
“This is corporate greed at its worst and shows how fundamentally unfair this process is for the very workers who kept this company going,” Unifor national president Lana Payne said in a statement earlier in the week.
“No manager or executive should see a bonus while severance and other legal obligations to workers remain unpaid.”
Employees still working for the company say they’ve been told not to expect severance, which Andrew Hatnay, a lawyer representing a growing group of Hudson’s Bay employees, has estimated will save the company more than $100 million.
Workers who remain are worried the case could wind up threatening their pensions and benefits.
“You can feel the difference. Everybody’s concerned. Everybody’s scared. Everybody’s uncertain what the future holds,” Kevin Grell, an e-commerce processor who marked eight years packaging orders for the Bay in November, told The Canadian Press earlier in the month.
“People have bills to pay and people have mortgages. They don’t know what to do and it’s just hard because a lot of people are sad.”
Court documents show the company’s pension plan had more than 21,000 members as of Dec. 31, including some that were previously employed by Hudson’s Bay acquisitions Simpsons, Zellers and Kmart Canada. The documents say the plan was “sufficiently funded” and “able to satisfy its liabilities.”
Hatnay said Bay staff have been told their pensions are safe, but a supplemental retirement pension plan covering executives and senior managers is underfunded by millions, as are some benefits funds.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2025.
