The largest grocery chain in Canada, Loblaw Companies Ltd, plans to shut six warehouses — four in Ontario and two in Quebec — and eliminate 1,400 jobs during the next three years in a cost-cutting move. The Toronto-based company, which is 63% owned by George Weston Ltd, has 130,000 employees in Canada.
In May, the first warehouses in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Victoriaville, Quebec, will be closed. The final closing is expected in 2007 in Mississauga, Ontario.
Warehouse operation streamlining is part of Loblaw's “one-company initiative'' that started about two years ago. Loblaw transferred its general merchandising group to Toronto from Calgary recently, and it plans to combine seven Toronto-area offices into one later in 2005.
