The Quebec manufacturer of medium-heavy and heavy-duty electric urban vehicles Lion Électrique announced Thursday that it will cut 120 jobs as part of a restructuring aimed at “further rationalizing its operating expenses and aligning its cost structure with the dynamic current market conditions”.
In a press release, the company clarified that the employees who will lose their positions are “primarily based in Canada in corporate and product development roles.” At the end of this sabre-rattling, it will have around 1,150 employees, of whom more than 600 are assigned to production positions.
According to Lion’s CEO and founder, Marc Bédard, it is essential that the company adjusts its workforce to the changing environment in which it operates.
“Current market dynamics, particularly delays encountered with the Canadian Federal Zero Emission Transit Fund, are having a persistent negative impact on our school bus deliveries, forcing us to further reduce our workforce. work,” he underlined in writing, saying he regretted the cuts and their impact on the employees affected.
According to Lion, the cuts announced Thursday should not affect production capacity. The company will also implement other measures to reduce its cost structure, including third-party inventory logistics, rental expenses, consulting, product development and professional fees.
Lion estimates that all of these changes, combined with other measures announced in recent months, should generate annualized savings of approximately $40 million.
In February, when it revealed that it had widened its losses in the fourth quarter of 2023 and during the entire financial year, the manufacturer announced that it was proceeding with the “temporary” layoff of around 100 employees, mainly part of the night shift workforce at its Saint-Jérôme manufacturing plant.
By the end of November 2023, Lion had also laid off 150 employees. According to a collective dismissal notice provided to The Canadian Press by the Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity, 121 of these 150 layoffs concerned employees in Quebec, i.e. 95 at the Saint-Jérôme facilities and 26 at the Mirabel facilities.
Lion Electric’s net loss increased from $4.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 to $56.5 million in the same quarter in fiscal 2023. And the net loss for fiscal 2023 was worse than that of the previous year, as it jumped from $17.8 million to $103.8 million.