Layoffs At Tolko

Starlee Speers Astral Media Radio (Vernon) May 6

Tolko has laid off five percent of their salaried employees across their Western Canada Operations. Operations Manager Jim Baskerville says the layoffs are separate from the three hundred employees still on a work curtailment in Kelowna, Armstrong and Lumby. "We have operations in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. So in total about 700 employees- five percent is about 32. Ten of which were in the Okanagan area of operation." Baskerville says the remaining salaried employees are being asked to take a salary reduction for up to an 18 month period. He says, meanwhile some workers may soon be called back to work at the Armstrong facility on a temporary basis.
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By Erin Hitchcock - Williams Lake Tribune - May 06, 2008

Several Tolko staff members in Williams Lake and Quesnel will be out of a job within the next couple of months. Tolko Industries is terminating about 35 – or five per cent – of its 700 non-unionized employees’ jobs throughout the country, eight of which are in Williams Lake and Quesnel, says Rob Fraser, Tolko’s general manager of Cariboo and Alberta lumber. “That number is very consistent across the board,” he says, adding that some vacant positions are also being terminated. “The company Tolko has looked at all of the essentials of the business. Over time, we’ve had a number of positions that have been vacant and not been filled.” Fraser notes that no positions in Williams Lake and Quesnel have been terminated yet, but the employees who will be losing their jobs have been notified.He adds that the terminated positions are not layoffs, as there is no expectation to rehire the employees.“It’s everybody from our administration staff to all the positions in the company,” he says, adding that unionized employees, such as labourers, won’t be affected. Some staff members will also see a salary reduction, although Fraser wouldn’t say how much that reduction will be.