Nordstrom's withdrawal from Canada leaves over 600 Vancouver employees stunned

Nordstrom's two stores in Greater Vancouver have nearly 650 employees.

The Nordstrom retail chain's decision to exit its Canadian operations came as a surprise to the company's 643-plus employees in Vancouver and Langley, British Columbia.

Whole Store is in shock, says Roy Jiang, one of the employees of the store in the metropolis. Even our manager is crying.

Roy Jiang maintains that the announcement was made to employees by email, so suddenly that everyone is surprised.

The chain has a total of some 2,500 employees in 13 stores across the country. It says it has been losing money year after year since opening its first Canadian location in 2014.

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According to David Ian Gray, the founder of Vancouver-based consulting firm DIG360 Consulting, rumors of Nordstrom's Canadian locations closing have been circulating since at least mid-February.

Despite these rumors , he says he is as shocked as everyone by Thursday's announcement. The Nordstrom family is not made up of reactive people […] they are rather intentional, maintains the consultant specializing in retail trade.

I knew they had challenges financial institutions in Canada and through their network, but I believed that the rumors were part of a negotiation strategy to obtain a reduction in rent or something like that, he notes.

I would have thought that they would like to readjust their activities in Canada, rather than withdrawing from the country.

He adds that Thursday's announcement is the after many difficulties that arose before the COVID-19 pandemic.

With information from Dan Burritt and Michelle Morton