When the mail stops: Canada Post strike and its ripple effect on the labour market

Canada Post strike

The nationwide strike at Canada Post has stopped more than the flow of letters and parcels. It has shaken the logistics backbone that millions of businesses and households rely on, and in doing so, it has raised uncomfortable questions about how Canada’s labour market adapts when one of its largest service providers suddenly goes silent.

For small and medium-sized businesses, the blow is immediate. In past disruptions, industry groups estimated daily losses in the tens of millions, with cumulative damage running into the billions if the strike lasted more than a few weeks. Entrepreneurs who ship goods across the country find themselves scrambling for alternatives, while consumers waiting for deliveries grow frustrated. Some companies may absorb the extra costs of switching to private couriers such as UPS, FedEx, or Purolator, but many simply cannot.

That strain often shows up in payrolls. Owners already operating on thin margins may cut hours, delay seasonal hiring, or place employees on temporary leave. The longer the strike continues, the greater the risk of permanent layoffs, particularly among small retailers, niche mail-order operations, and firms that depend heavily on parcel traffic to keep sales alive. Even if only a small fraction of SMEs reduce headcount, the impact could reach into the low thousands of lost jobs nationwide.

But the strike does not affect all employers equally. Where Canada Post retreats, private carriers see opportunity. Logistics companies are already eyeing new business and, in some cases, may need to hire more drivers, warehouse staff, and last-mile delivery workers to absorb the overflow. The shift, however, is uneven. Large cities with dense delivery networks are likely to see a surge in courier and gig work, while rural and remote communities (where Canada Post has been the sole provider) are left with fewer options, raising the prospect of slower service and higher costs without any compensating boost in local jobs.

Within Canada Post itself, the strike highlights longer-term challenges. Management has already floated proposals to reduce full-time staffing, eliminate door-to-door delivery in many communities, and move toward more part-time positions. If those reforms move forward, some postal workers may not return to their old roles at all, pushing them into the broader labour market at a time when courier firms and gig platforms are competing for talent.

The overall impact depends on how long the strike lasts. A brief disruption of two weeks might cause frustration and short-term delays but would likely keep job losses contained to a few hundred, offset by modest courier hiring. A strike stretching to six weeks or more could be far costlier: thousands of small businesses might be forced into layoffs or unpaid leave, leaving perhaps 2,000 to 5,000 net jobs at risk across the country, even after accounting for gains among private couriers. If the dispute runs into months, the longer-term erosion of Canada Post’s market share could lock in those losses and accelerate a permanent shift in employment from a public provider toward private logistics and gig work.

Already, Canada Post’s dominance in parcel delivery has been waning. Its share of the market has dropped sharply over the past decade as private carriers have gained ground. Repeated labour disputes risk reinforcing that trend, nudging businesses and households toward alternatives they may never abandon.

It is important to note that this article does not seek to debate the right to strike or take a position on the legitimacy of the union’s actions. Rather, it is an objective look at the possible consequences for employment and economic activity should the work stoppage persist.

For now, the strike has thrust the labour market into a kind of limbo; a pause in one corner of the economy that sets off chain reactions across others. Workers and employers alike are left weighing whether this will be a temporary inconvenience or the beginning of a deeper restructuring in how Canada moves its goods, and who earns a living in the process.