EQB Inc.

says it is reducing its workforce by about eight per cent as it tries to boost its efficiency, the latest cuts to hit Canada’s

financial services sector

.

The company, which offers banking services through its Equitable Bank, the country’s seventh-largest bank by assets, on Wednesday said its restructuring program would cost around $67 million, including workforce reductions and impairment charges, and will be included in its fourth-quarter results.

“We are executing a future-focused plan,” Chadwick Westlake, EQB’s chief executive, said in a statement. “These decisive, yet difficult, decisions focus our efforts and improve productivity to drive positive operating leverage and an improved efficiency ratio as we capture the profitable opportunities ahead.”

He said EQB’s strategy is grounded in “reigniting” the bank’s “core franchise, advancing our diversification and product initiatives” and “enabling world-class capability and efficiency.”

EQB announced its job reduction strategy a week after the

Bank of Nova Scotia

said it was laying off an undisclosed number of workers. In May,

Toronto-Dominion Bank

said it was aiming to cut about two per cent of its workforce as part of a restructuring program initiated in the second quarter.

Darko Mihelic, an analyst at

Royal Bank of Canada

, said EQB’s move is expected to impact about 160 full-time employees.

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“We hesitantly view the restructuring program positively,” he said in a note. “We somewhat expected that EQB may take a restructuring charge given its focus on improving its efficiency ratio, but an eight per cent reduction in its workforce is larger (and earlier) than we would have expected. We still view EQB as a fast-growth company.”

Mike Rizvanovic, an analyst at Bank of Nova Scotia, said layoffs were a step in the right direction as EQB addresses its “expense headwinds,” but the large reduction in headcount could have a “very adverse implication on morale,” specifically for a company that hasn’t had these kinds of job cuts in recent years.

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