Canon Virginia dismissed 60 employees at its Newport News, VA, facility on February 26, 2024, and conducted further layoffs on February 27, though the number of additional layoffs is currently being finalised.
Canon Virginia, Inc. located in Newport News, Virginia is a manufacturer for Canon’s office and consumer products. Our innovative and efficient production methods along with our environmental commitment make us a leading global manufacturer. Since opening our doors in 1985, Canon Virginia has provided exceptional manufacturing services.
https://www.cvi.canon.com/internet/portal/cvi/home/aboutus
According to our source, The company has been systematically reducing its workforce quarterly to sidestep the requirements for issuing a WARN notice. The layoffs predominantly affect workers in their 50's and 60's, with a handful nearing retirement. We're told that the severance package was about 3 months for most if not all laid off employees.
The source claims that the performance of their printer and toner segments has been on a consistent decline. Canon Virginia attempted a partnership with Alcoa to manufacture wax molds for the aerospace sector but failed due to a breach of contract after trying to engage with a competing firm. Currently, they are shifting their focus towards the medical sector, although they are struggling to gain the necessary traction.
We have not reached out to Canon USA to confirm this information, but let's be real. They likely wouldn't respond to a request for comment from Canon Rumors.
lol, indeed.
Hopefully the affected employees will find another job
It's not at all. There's likely an early-retirement package of some sort, as well as the 3-month severance pay. Better them than someone in their 30s with 3 young kids or whatever. Older folks are also further up the payscale usually, and you can lay off fewer of them. If they spread it around by age they might have needed 70 or 75 people to go instead.
But I found a new job within a week and used the remaining severance pay to buy an EOS RP and EF100L :)
At my father’s last job, they heavily hinted at mass layoffs and tried enticing people with slightly-more-generous-than-legally-requiered severance packages. With that and a few months of unemployment compensation he could make it his retirement age, so he was lucky in that regard.
I don’t think he would’ve found another job as a database administrator, maybe he’d luck out and stumble upon a COBOL job opening.
I read through the “at will” propaganda at work recently and the most generous way to describe that is: Your company can screw you at any time, but you also have the option and privilege of screwing yourself!
I very much doubt a US company will do the right thing for the near-retirement people.
You could join an well paid early retirement programme, but only if YOU wanted to!
I’ve been through it three times. The first was at a large pharma where I was offered a transfer to New Jersey (pass) or to stay in a role with a very different focus, so I ‘hand raised’ (volunteered to be laid off), took my 8-months severance and went to another large pharma. I did leave without a job lined up and our third child was one year old, so it was a bit stressful but worked out well in the end.
The second time was at a biotech where it was clear they were heading for funding troubles. I was already interviewing when the axe fell. Their severance package was up to 3 months, as in if you found a job sooner (which I did), they stopped paying the severance.
The third time was during COVID, and was a windfall for me. I received an ‘urgent meeting’ request, and when I logged onto the Zoom call the first person there was the head of HR so I immediately knew what was happening. The kicker was that earlier that day I had verbally accepted an offer for a new role, and was thinking of when I would give notice when I was notified that I was being separated. No ‘official’ reason (at will employment and all) but it was because I pissed off the CEO by refusing to require my team to return to the office full time in the summer of 2020 (that demand was the reason I started looking in the first place). The HR guy kept asking if I was ok, I guess because I had an odd expression on my face...here they were telling me I was being laid off, and I was trying not to grin knowing I'd get severance and was about to step into a new role anyway. I was able to have the new start date pushed out so I ended up with two months paid vacation then four months getting severance alongside my new salary, and not only that but the company that laid me off realized they shouldn't have done so when they did, and ended up needing to ask me to come on as a consultant for several months, so I ended up being triple-paid for a while. The additional income went to the kids' college funds.
Reading layoff details in this thread reminded me of Disney's "exploits" nearly a decade ago.
Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements. (Published 2015)
Ex-Disney IT workers sue after being asked to train their own H-1B replacements
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I myself witnessed more-or-less mandated annual layoffs at the General Electric R&D Center in Niskayuna NY...GE's 'sainted' leader Neutron Jack Welch instituted a policy where, each year, every employee, in every unit, was ranked, and the bottom 10% were lopped off in the name of increased efficiency (and GE's stock price and quarterly profits).
For what it's worth, have you looked at GE's financials lately?
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FWIW...Canon's G620 printer is very very good at what it does.
So yes, it's a Dick move by Canon.
About 8 years ago - at 56 - I was once again in the job market. I applied at numerous places, for jobs I was well qualified for and heard nothing but crickets. At one place I interviewed with the shop supervisor. We spent about 2 hours and he concluded by saying - direct quote - “We haven’t had anyone come in with anywhere near your qualifications. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got the job”. I emailed him a few days later, asking about profit sharing and such, and he got right back to me. Then…nothing. I can almost guarantee he went to HR, said “I want this guy” and they said “Nope, too old”.
When I went back and trimmed my resume by ten years my inbox lit up with offers. (It helps greatly that I look a lot younger than I am). When he advised me to pare my resume back, the guy at Job Service said “Age discrimination is alive and well”. Damned if he wasn’t right.
That certainly should have gone at least to an EF 600 III to save you the extra couple pounds, Neuro. College educations pffft.
I do think that the international nature of this forum makes some of the comments land differently to different people. Most times in the US, people reaching retirement age isn't what it used to be, or like it is now elsewhere, where there is a time goal reached after which certain benefits kick in, else they're lost. Most people today in the US contribute to retirement plans that employers may add into as well, but the "retirement age" has less to do with a pension cutoff, and more to do with whether the federal social security system will consider you to be an early withdrawer, and penalize the benefit. But it's different in different industries, jobs, companies.