Given Ontario's recent decision to close cinemas in the wake of the Omicron surge, Canada's largest movie theater chain, Cineplex, has pink-slipped over 5,000 part-time employees. Cineplex has shut down all of its theaters in the Canadian province as of today.

“Because of the mandated closures of our theatre and entertainment venues across Ontario, we made the tough but necessary decision to once again temporarily lay-off our part-time workforce, impacting nearly 5,000 roles. We are eager to get our team back to work once and for all as soon as these temporary restrictions are lifted,” a Cineplex spokesperson told Deadline this afternoon.

The movie shutdown in Ontario are anticipated to persist until January 28. At that time, Cineplex intends to rehire the part-time employees. The staffers' benefit is that they can take use of unemployment benefits in their home province of Canada during their vacation.

In Ontario, Cineplex operates 67 multiplexes. Ontario accounted for just 2.1 percent of North American ticket purchases this past weekend, but more over 40% of Canadian ticket sales.

Morbius, a Marvel film, was just rescheduled from January 28 to April 1. After that, the next big wide releases are Paramount's Jackass Forever and Lionsgate's Moonfall on February 4th.