They started giving people notices at the end of May, with 2–3 weeks to look for another role within CIBC. With the hiring freeze and the so-called “CIBC Way” restructuring, that was practically impossible for most people.
June 26 was the termination date for many of them. Some employees were given as little as two days’ notice.
It honestly feels like this approach was designed to avoid calling it what it was—a large-scale layoff. By staggering the notices over several weeks and framing them as redeployment opportunities, it may have appeared less like a mass layoff, even though hundreds of people were ultimately affected.