As GM Oshawa layoffs begin, workers leave the plant and enter an uncertain job market

At 6:30 a.m. on Friday, autoworkers at GM’s Oshawa plant began clocking out for the last time and walked out into the frigid cold. 

They were among the first workers to be laid off as GM cuts one of three shifts. Up to 1,200 autoworkers across the supply chain are expected to lose their jobs. 

“A lot of people have some sort of resentment, but you've just got to go on, move on,” said Kendrick Gordon, speaking outside the plant on his last day working for a subcontractor. 

Stephen Hyde also lost his job on Friday morning.  For three years, he’s worked for TFT, a company that supplies parts to GM. Before that, he worked at GM for 34 years. 

He said he’s left with an “empty feeling in the pit of my stomach” after losing his job. 

Hyde, 66, says he is considering moving to Alberta to find work, as he has family in Edmonton. 

“The unknown is really bad, because there’s not a lot of jobs in Ontario,” he said. “Jobs are disappearing quickly.” 

Hyde said he wants Prime Minister Mark Carney to make “some type of deal” with President Donald Trump as U.S. tariffs continue to punish Canadian industrial sectors. 

“Right now, Ontario is not looking very good at all,” Hyde said. 

Meanwhile, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly called the GM layoffs “completely unacceptable” speaking in Montreal on Friday. 

“If GM doesn’t want to continue to invest more in Canada, we will invest in other players,” she said. 

“We’ll fight for these workers and we’ll find them jobs,” she said. 

Joly said she met with GM on Thursday and “told them that we would be getting our money back.” 

In 2022, the federal and Ontario governments announced they would be investing up to $259 million each in GM’s Oshawa plant and its CAMI facility in Ingersoll.