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Air Canada to rehire 16,500 workers

laid off due to pandemic
AFP News
2-3 minutes

Some 16,500 Air Canada employees who were laid off because of
the coronavirus pandemic will be rehired under a government relief
package for businesses, the airline said Wednesday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced during his daily news

conference that the program would now be open to companies that
suffered a drop of more than 15 percent in their revenues in March,
against 30 percent previously.

Air Canada furloughed nearly half of its Canada-based workforce of

36,000 on March 30 after seeing business abruptly dry up by more
than 90 percent as country after country imposed travel restrictions
and people stopped flying.

The Canadian government stepped in April 1 with the emergency

wage subsidy plan designed to help employers keep their workers
or bring back ones that were laid off because of the pandemic.

It is retroactive to March 15 and the government will pay 75 percent

of hard-hit companies' payrolls through June 6.

Air Canada said that under the "CEWS" relief package it will bring
back the people it had furloughed.

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Air Canada says it will rehire furloughed employees under a government

relief program. Photo: AFP / JOEL SAGET

"Subject to its adoption into law substantially as announced, Air

Canada intends to adopt the CEWS for the benefit of its 36,000
Canadian-based employee workforce," the company said in a
statement.

Trudeau also warned Canadians to brace for painful monthly

unemployment figures to be released Thursday.

"It's going to be a hard day for the country," he said. "But I know
that if we pull together, our economy will come roaring back after
this crisis."

More than four million people have applied for emergency aid
offered by the government since mid-March, about one fifth of the
country's active population.

The figures point to an explosion in the unemployment rate for

March from 5.6 percent in February.

Canada on Wednesday had more than 19,000 officially declared

cases of coronavirus, and 456 deaths.

Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.

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