A spokesperson for Tech Data Canada has confirmed an unspecified number of layoffs by the distributor, owing to the state of the economy and declining volumes for IT products.
News of the layoffs comes one month after the distributor released financial results that showed a decline in earnings that Tech Data Canada president Rick Reid attributed at least in part to the drop in value of the Canadian dollar.
“You have to understand that the Canadian dollar and the U.S. dollar was almost on par. The drop in currency was the No. 1 factor (in the performance decline). Our local revenues were down about half of the Americas. A big part of that came as a result of January. We had an OK November and a good December. Then for some reason it was like the lights were turned off. We did not know what to expect, but at the end of February things picked up and so it is not so bad,” Reid said last month.
Tech Data isn’t the only Canadian distributor trimming staff. In February, as part of a North America-wide round of job cuts, Ingram Micro Canada trimmed 50 positions from its Mississauga, Ont. headquarters. At the time, Ingram Micro North America president Keith Bradley said the cuts were part of the distributor’s optimization initiative and, while the company tried hard to avoid cutting positions that had associates in them, it came to a point where the poor economy forced its hand.
More to come.