Layoffs are affecting the Eastern Ontario community of Hawkesbury.
The DB warehouse, near the border of Ontario and Quebec, is cutting more than 100 jobs to make way for automation.
The warehouse, which distributes products for Jean Coutu pharmacies, will keep just 35 employees, 25 of them part-time.
Richard LeBlanc, staff representative from the United Steelworkers union, said they were notified last year that changes would be coming, but said he had no idea they would be so drastic.
“We were informed the last year that they were restructuring, they were moving some products but we are absolutely flabbergasted by the extent of these changes, we did not expect that it would be this severe,” he said.
Company officials with Jean Coutu confirmed they are moving distribution products to another site in Varennes, near Montreal, but would keep seasonal items in Hawkesbury, and may add jobs back in the future.
Leblanc said it was a result of changing times – a trend in shipping items individually rather than boxfuls.
“In the operation in Varennes, that will all be robotic, I’m not sure exactly how it works but there will be a bin on a conveyer or a belt and by bar code the products will fall by unit into a big box,” he said.
News of the layoffs hit the community hard.
“In my store as well as anywhere else, whether it be fixing their car, buying a new car, whatever is it, going to a restaurant , everybody is affected and it’s a snowball effect right,” said Claude Theriault with Theriault Electronique.
Leblanc said meetings were scheduled to discuss how things would unfold. He said layoffs would begin mid-March and take roughly two months to complete.
