Laying off people right before retirement is a dick move.
I was part of one of the layoffs (they have now had several since 2020). Each time they lay off just under the WARN threshold so it isn't required to hit the papers - Canon goes waaaay out it's way to negate negative publicity. Even the uniform policy forbids wearing company issued clothes off of their premises.
Regardless, after close to 35 years there and working my way up from an hourly "member" (management likes the term member, as in family member but now we know it's more like incest) to senior management by doing things that made the company successful I simply got a phone all at home telling me to never step foot on the premises again & that I was being "laid off due to Covid".
Mule muffins.
For decades several Americans told the very top level Japanese that we needed to diversify our business as anything related to cheap, mainstay PowerShot cameras was going to go bye-bye (everyone has a smart phone now) soon and copier and anything Toner related was going to fall off dramatically as well. Obviously not completely but in reality who "Xerox's" like we used too?
So they did TWICE try to diversify. The first venture they got caught trying to sell that military (proprietary) information to other companies! This failure is public knowledge. The second is their own medical systems and that has fallen flat. Vast resources wasted on both projects.
At a high they employed over 6000+ people & it's now much less than 1000, probably now closer to 400.
Bottom line, they have fired all contract labor people and been systematically laying off full time "normal" employees for the last several years. They almost always release tenured (older) people that helped the company grow and succeed. Many people like material handlers that I knew were there just as long as I was and were happy in their position. Whether upper management such as myself or an entry level position, if you are "older" then we all have been axed because they were an insurance liability (cost to much to cover their insurance from the Canon point of view) and were usually topped out in their respective pay scale (around$18/hr for the material handler). These are simply 2 of the reasons.
Reality IS that I was laid off due to the mostly senior Japanese management poor decisions. EVERY year I received exemplary performance reviews, hence the numerous promotions as noted earlier.
Regardless of what the laws are if you have gray hair nobody wants to hire you even at an entry level position. I KNOW as I've been turned down for hundreds of jobs, dozens of which I knew I could have made a substantial positive difference to the bottom line.
In summary...
Yeah, it's a dick move.