Although there has not been word on where the axe will fall for RIM as they purge 5,000 jobs over the next few months (TQ was on it), there is little doubt that the company’s home base will be affected. The layoffs represent 30% of the company’s 16,500 member workforce, 9,000 of who work in Waterloo.
According to the CBC, a collective of parties of gotten together and planned various means of aiding employees who have fallen victim to the cuts. Employment Ontario along with Communitech; a local NFP that helps Kitchener-Waterloo’s tech companies along wit the area’s two distinguished universities; Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier are all pitching in to help make the most of a difficult situation.
The schools have planned to add seats within their faculties of entrepreneurship and business to allow for laid off staff to focus on educating themselves on starting and prospering in their own business ventures. Employment Ontario and Communitech plan on offering a myriad of services to employees who have been laid off in order to get them back in the region’s tech workforce through job searches and career counselling.
The cuts have been deemed mandatory as part of the company’s initiative to eliminate $1 billion in costs by the end of the year. According to various reports, those who have an integral role in the creation, perfection and launch of the upcoming BB10 platform have been deemed safe from the cuts.
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