CMHC restructuring reduces staff, boosts hiring in some areas
OTTAWA — Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. has told more than 10 per cent of its employees they will lose their jobs as part of a reorganization at the housing finance agency that will also see it boost hiring in priority areas such as risk management and information technology.
The company declared 215 of its staff as “surplus,” according to a statement provided to Bloomberg by CMHC spokesman Charles Sauriol. The affected workers come from “all sectors and all regions.” A subsequent expansion will mean only a “small net reduction” in staffing, according to the statement. The agency said in its 2013 annual report that it has roughly 1,900 employees.
“The goal of the organizational design process is to build a better CMHC,” the company said in the statement. “This meant looking at all the activities we do in both regions and at national office to determine if they are being done most effectively or if they should be done at all.”
The move marks the biggest change at the agency since the appointment of Evan Siddall, a former official at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., as its chief executive last December.
In its latest corporate plan, the agency said it was working to achieve “administrative efficiencies in the federal social housing portfolio, the rationalization of the delivery of research and information dissemination, and the elimination of export promotion activities.”
The review was broad-based, incorporating all the agency’s activities, as part of a review of the organization’s business models, CMHC said in the statement.
“Our new organizational structure will result in more efficient processes and will equip our employees for continued success and progress,” it said. Scott Armstrong, parliamentary secretary to Employment Minister Jason Kenney, told lawmakers in Ottawa on Friday the staff reductions were an “administrative decision’’ made by CMHC.