Sixteen CHEK-TV employees were laid off this week in a move by Global Television to cull 210 commercial production and news staff across Canada.

Victoria station general manager Rob Eberle was the highest-profile local employee to be given his notice on Tuesday. He had no comment on the situation Wednesday, his last day at work.

Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union representatives were given the details of the layoff notice on Wednesday, according to the union’s national representative, Rob Lumgair.

“If you’ve got less people, you are going to do less news,” he said, noting Victoria news content had already been affected by the layoff of a similar number of employees in September.

CHEK-TV has already moved its production facilities to Vancouver, Lumgair said. With less news staff in the Capital, viewers can expect repeated material and more news stories from Vancouver and outside of B.C., he added.

A call to Brett Manlove, Canwest vice-president for broadcast operations in B.C. was not returned by the News’ deadline.

As for the future of the station, Lumgair said it’s not folding.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission license is worth good money, he said.

“If you just walk away, someone would fill that gap.”

In a Wednesday press release, Canwest Global Communications Corp., owner of Global Television, announced it’s cutting 560 jobs, equaling five per cent of the company’s workforce.

Those were achieved through voluntary buyouts, attrition and reductions. The action is a result of the market, as well as structural challenges in the conventional television model, Canwest stated.

“Having completed an assessment of our Canadian operations and, after careful consideration, we are implementing a number of initiatives that will provide savings that will allow us to better compete in the current economic environment, without compromising our core products and services,” Canwest president and CEO Leonard Asper stated in the release.

After the last round of layoffs In September – the majority of them technical staff – former Canwest Broadcasting vice-president of news and information Steve Wyatt told media the move was an attempt to ensure Canwest stations were utilizing current technology. Upgrading all of the television stations just wasn’t an economically viable option, he added.

The first group of laid-off employees received severance packages.

While CHEK-TV was cutting, ‘A’ channel Victoria was hiring.

In September, the CTVglobemedia-owned station added new morning programming and staff.

“We are doing fine. Our numbers are good,” said Bruce Williams, the station’s community relations manager.

-with files from Amanda Farrell

raldous@vicnews.com