The American withdrawal of Nova Bus will bring 200 jobs to its Quebec facilities. It is the turn of the Saint-François-du-Lac factory to suffer, where the workforce reduction is of the order of 23%.

Some 70 people, mainly welders, will lose their livelihood, according to the notice sent to the Ministry of Labour by the Quebec manufacturer of urban buses – which received financial support from the Legault government last February.

These layoffs are in addition to the 125 positions eliminated at the Saint-Eustache plant, which also houses the Nova Bus head office. Both restructurings are attributable to the closure of its US factory, which is expected to cease operations by the end of the first quarter of 2025, the company says.

“The Saint-François-du-Lac plant produces the chassis sent to the Saint-Eustache and Plattsburgh plants,” says Nova Bus’ public affairs and external communications advisor, Alexandrine Gauvin. By closing the Plattsburgh factory, chassis needs will only be linked to the needs of the Saint-Eustache factory. »

This new cut coincides with the arrival of a new president at Nova Bus: Paul Le Houillier. On June 1, the latter succeeded Ralph Acs who, according to the company at the time, retired last April.

If the restructuring in Saint-Eustache concerned “white-collar workers”, that of Saint-François-du-Lac, where there are around 300 people, directly affects unionized factory workers. They are represented by Unifor.

Nova Bus has approximately 1,200 employees in Quebec.

A subsidiary of the Volvo Group, the urban bus manufacturer revealed that it had posted “continuous financial losses over the years” in the United States by announcing the closure of its American factory in June 2023. However, they had not been quantified .

The financial data of Nova Bus is not accessible since it is consolidated with that of its owner.

In the Canadian market, the company, at the heart of an electric shift, must face an increase in its costs – like many manufacturers. Last February, it obtained a forgivable loan of 19.1 million from the Legault government.

Concretely, Quebec will finance the increase in the production rate at Nova Bus if the company maintains its employment levels in its factories in Saint-Eustache (Laurentides) and Saint-François-du-Lac (Centre-du-Québec). ).

This is not the first time that the Quebec manufacturer has benefited from a government financial boost. In 2021, the Trudeau government offered him 15 million to help finance his electrification ambitions.

The Nova Bus order book is well stocked in the electrical niche. In 2023, the Volvo Group subsidiary won an order worth 2.2 billion to deliver up to 1,230 LFSe electric urban buses to nine transport companies, including Montreal. This contract is financed to the tune of 1.1 billion by Quebec while 780 million comes from Ottawa.

Over the past year, the company had tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain price adjustments as part of a contract won in 2018 surrounding the delivery of 850 hybrid city buses to nine transport companies represented by the Quebec Urban Transport Association.

Nova Bus cited a surge in costs caused by an increase in the prices of certain materials which was sometimes of the order of 20%.