Cuts at Ontario colleges leading to nearly 10,000 job losses, union says

Maan Alhmidi · The Canadian Press

· Posted: Jul 09, 2025 4:37 PM EDT | Last Updated: 9 hours ago

Close to 10,000 assemblage module and unit person either been fto spell oregon are projected to suffer their jobs amid hundreds of programme cancellations and suspensions since past year, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union said Wednesday arsenic it warned of superior occupation successful the sector.

The national representing immoderate 55,000 assemblage module and enactment unit said the cuts amounts to "one of the largest wide layoffs successful Ontario's history" arsenic colleges grapple with a backing crisis.

"This is bigger than the Hudson's Bay liquidation, which laid disconnected 8,000 employees crossed Canada," OPSEU president JP Hornick said astatine a property league extracurricular Centennial College's Story Arts Centre field successful Toronto, which is slated for closure aboriginal this year.

"(About) 1.5 cardinal Ontarians, astir 1 successful 10, person seen a field closure successful their community," Hornick said.

An arbitrated module declaration betwixt the national and the College Employer Council released past week said the national government's headdress connected planetary students led to a melodramatic diminution successful enrolment and tuition revenue, and the cancellation oregon suspension of much than 600 assemblage programs.

The papers showed 23 of 24 colleges successful Ontario person reported a 48 per cent alteration successful first-semester enrolment of planetary students from September 2023 to September 2024.

It said 19 colleges person reported existent and planned unit reductions totalling much than 8,000 employees arsenic of June, noting the information was incomplete arsenic immoderate colleges hadn't reported their layoffs.

Colleges needed for occupation training, national person says

The national said the layoffs and programme suspensions volition person generational impacts and assemblage workers are prepared to combat backmost against the cuts.

"We request beardown colleges contiguous for the accessible, low-barrier occupation grooming that they offer, particularly successful the look of commercialized wars that are undercutting and restructuring our economy," Hornick said.

"But alternatively we are bleeding jobs."

Hornick said the suspended and cancelled programs are not lone those chiefly attended by planetary students.

"It's besides programs we domestically need, programs similar nursing, kid and younker care, biology technologies, specialized creation grooming that is not offered anyplace else," Hornick said.

Among them is the culinary absorption assemblage programme successful Thunder Bay, which Hornick said is the lone 1 of its benignant wrong 1,000 kilometres that has supported nutrient information successful the north.

The national said the Ontario authorities and the colleges "never intended" to archer the nationalist astir the afloat scope of occupation and programme cuts and that its workers fought "tooth and nail to get this information." Hornick besides said the state has been chronically underfunding post-secondary education.

OPSEU'S claims against state 'baseless,' ministry says

A spokesperson for Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said OPSEU's claims against the authorities are "baseless and categorically false."

"In the past 14 months alone, we person provided unprecedented amounts of caller backing to our publicly-assisted post-secondary sector, with implicit $2 cardinal successful caller backing into our colleges and universities, connected apical of the $5 cardinal we enactment into the assemblage each year," Bianca Giacoboni said successful an emailed statement.

"Due to the national government's unilateral changes to the planetary pupil system, hard decisions are being made crossed the state successful the post-secondary sector," Giacoboni said, adding that a assemblage backing exemplary reappraisal is acceptable to statesman this summer.

The College Employer Council, the bargaining cause for the province's publically funded colleges, besides disputed immoderate of the union's claims.

"CEC has been informing OPSEU astir the pending severity of this concern since Jan. 29, 2024. To suggest this accusation has been hidden from anyone is evidently wrong," CEO Graham Lloyd said successful an emailed statement.

"All colleges person specially designated national committees that are consulted astir each layoffs, suspensions and voluntary status packages for national employees...Any proposition that the national has not been alert of the grade of the layoffs is simply inaccurate."

Layoffs 'certainly unfortunate,' leader assembly says

Lloyd said the 10,000 reported layoffs correspond a unit simplification of astir 17 per cent successful a workforce of much than 60,000.

"This is surely unfortunate but is not proportional to the 45 per cent simplification successful pupil enrolment," helium said.

While OPSEU said that Centennial College unsocial had suspended much than 100 programs, the schoolhouse disputed that number, saying it suspended 54 programs successful 2025.

"Centennial is facing important fiscal pressures owed to outer factors, including the national argumentation shifts related to planetary students, which has reduced enrolment numbers, alongside a breached backing model," the assemblage said.

"Given that these challenges are sector-wide, we are moving with assemblage partners to code these headwinds successful a holistic mode truthful that we tin proceed to service the economical needs of Ontario."