OpenAI and SoftBank Group have invested $1 billion ($500 million each) in SB Energy to expand its data centre and power infrastructure for their Stargate initiative, a $500 billion multi-year initiative to build AI data centres for training and inference, also backed by other major investors like Oracle and President Trump. SB Energy, a SoftBank-owned company, is slated to build and operate OpenAI’s previously announced 1.2-gigawatt data centre site in Milam County, Texas. It will also become...

Paris-based game developer, Ubisoft, announced the closing of its Halifax studio which came as an abrupt surprise to the 70-plus workers. The announcement comes only 15 years after it first established itself in Nova Scotia, where it has had a pioneering impact on the gaming industry. Staff were called to an impromptu meeting to find out that they would be laid off. It comes as a particularly hard blow as employees at the Halifax office unionized in late December, forming the company’s first...

According to data from Statistics Canada (StatCan), the number of Canadians travelling to and from the United States continues to slide as data shows that Canadian return trips by car declined for the twelfth straight month, as have Canada to U.S. flight volumes, a clear response to the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and the changed geopolitical relationship between the two nations. In December, 1.3 million Canadians returned from the U.S. by automobile, representing a 30.7 percent...

With a seemingly insurmountable deficit, which has made the Crown Corporation essentially insolvent, Canada Post is likely to see some major changes taking place to get costs under control, including the loss of 30,000 of its nearly 62,000 jobs to retirement and voluntary departures by 2035, 16,000 of which will be eliminated by 2030 and the other 14,000 over the following five years. Chief Financial Officer Rindala El-Hage said that losses in the first nine months of the year topped $1...

The imposition of a 107 percent U.S. import tax on Italian pasta could cause prices of the beloved staple to rise, or in some cases become harder to find, sending Italian-Americans and individuals across cultures into a panic, as the Trump administration considers the new import duty on 13 of Italy’s largest pasta exporters. The proposal, which was published by the Commerce Department, would see the inclusion of a 92 percent antidumping duty after a U.S. government probe found that some...

Social media management platform provider Hootsuite laid off hundreds of workers representing 20 percent of its global workforce as it responds to changing market conditions. The company, which was founded by entrepreneur and former CEO Ryan Holmes in 2008, has seen a steady decline in employment levels over the last several years in addition to the latest round of cuts. "Today, we made the difficult decision to restructure our organization, reducing our global workforce by 20 percent,"...

Amazon plans to cut 14,000 corporate staffers this year as it prepares to more widely adopt and integrate AI technology across its ecosystem, but those who lose their jobs will be prioritized for hiring efforts in other key areas. More job cuts are planned for the future, with some expecting upwards of 30,000 jobs impacted by the staffing reductions. “We expect to continue hiring in key strategic areas while also finding additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize...

Staffing levels are being reduced at Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) as part of the bank’s ongoing restructuring efforts, both through job cuts and a staggered return to the office for full-time staff into 2026. “We continue to progress with our plans to increase the amount of time colleagues are spending together in-person, in line with our previously announced plans to adopt a four-day, in-office model,” spokesperson Meghan Thomas said. “Our executives have already moved into this model and...

EQ Bank (EQB), a subsidiary of Equitable Group Inc, will cut approximately eight percent of its 2,000-member workforce (full time equivalent) as it restructures operations under its new leadership. The reduction is likely to result in $20 million in cost reductions before tax and charges. In a statement, Chief Executive Chadwick Westlake said, “These decisive, yet difficult, decisions focus our efforts and improve productivity to drive positive operating leverage and an improved efficiency...