Former Canada Goose employees allege layoffs via email ‘inhumane’

On March 26, Canada Goose CEO Dani Reiss announced 'sad news' in a LinkedIn post: the company was laying off 17 per cent of its global corporate workforce.

When Canada Goose employees received an email on Monday, March 25, telling them not to come into the office the following day, they feared the worst.

The last time they received a directive like that was in August and it preceded a round of layoffs.

This time around there were terminations too, but with one key difference: people were informed of their layoff from the luxury parka maker via email.

The decision to approach terminations this way was described as “inhumane,” and “disheartening” by three former employees who spoke with Global News and shared some of the email communications they received on condition of anonymity.

Global is protecting their identities as they fear repercussions for speaking with the media and worry it may harm their future employment prospects.

“Being terminated after years of being successful at your job is traumatic,” one laid off worker tells Global News. “It’s being done through emails and you really feel like you’re just a number and you didn’t matter.”

In a statement to Global News on Thursday, Canada Goose’s chief human resources officer Jess Johannson said: “decisions like this are heartbreaking — we understand the human impact they have, and we know there’s no perfect way to share this kind of news.”

She went on to say, “our focus was to ensure that our team members were treated with respect and dignity and given the grace to process the news on their own time.”