Thursday was Downsizing Day across North America

The march to the unemployment lines will start up for employees of Chrysler, Kodak and The Source, as the three companies begin some restructuring plans that will see Canadian workers looking for alternate options in the near future.

Chrysler Canada has announced that 20% of its labour force will be eliminated as many as 2,000 employees, all part of the larger plan to eliminate 10,000 jobs North America wide as the auto maker joins the North American parade of job reductions in the auto sector.

A cycle that has seen all three major North American companies eliminate jobs as record losses skyrocket. Chrysler is rather late to the party, having watched both GM and Ford make their announcements in 2006 in one of the largest retrenchments in the auto industry in recent years.

The announcement seems to have left the CAW’s Buzz Hargrove in a bit of shock, Chrysler had been used as kind of a spotlight of success for North America of late, to have them jump into the same wading pool as GM and Ford doesn’t bode well for the membership. Hargrove suggested that these kinds of reductions will be a common thing unless the North American car makers are given access to world markets that currently keep the continent’s cars out of their home turf.

Photography giant (well perhaps former giant is proper) Kodak announced further layoffs of 3,000 employees, a rather remarkable feat considering in the last three years the company has eliminated some 27,000 jobs as the move from film to digital took hold. Any more staff reductions at Kodak and they’ll be able to have their world headquarters in one of those abandoned Fotomat kiosks of the days gone by.

And the final addition to the Wednesday jobs sweeps, saw another large scale job sacking announced, this one by The Source by Circuit City which provided few details on their plans to close 62 under performing stores across Canada. Hard numbers of soon to be ex employees were not available, each operation is different and staffing levels can range from two to fifteen employees depending on the market.

The announcement was made with the optimistic sounding headline of “Circuit City Stores, Inc. Announces Changes to Improve Financial Performance”, which may be true, but certainly not if you’re collecting a paycheque from the company.

No details were announced as to which stores across Canada were scheduled to be closed, so time will tell if the Prince Rupert operation will be spared from the downsizing plans.