Understaffed and overwhelmed, IT teams face rising pressure as retail digitization accelerates

ODTN News broadcaster Roshan Khan

Toronto, ON — As Canada’s major retailers race toward full digital transformation, a new concern is surfacing from inside their own walls: burnout among IT professionals. And it’s growing faster than the infrastructure they’re being asked to maintain.

According to internal briefings and confidential interviews conducted by ODTN News, retail IT teams across the country are reporting unsustainable workloads, unrealistic upgrade timelines, and chronic understaffing — all while expected to fend off increasingly complex cyber threats.

“We’re getting new systems every quarter, but no new staff to support them,” said one infrastructure engineer at a national pharmacy chain, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We’re supposed to be innovating, defending, and scaling — but most days we’re just surviving.”

Burnout Becoming a Security Risk

While burnout is not new to the tech sector, experts warn the current combination of accelerated digital rollout and cybersecurity pressure is creating a dangerous inflection point.

“You can’t expect resilience from teams running on fumes,” said a senior systems architect from LogiSync Canada, a major retail logistics platform. “When we’re too tired to properly audit new code or track access logs, that’s when threat actors slip through.”

Multiple insiders confirmed that some scheduled patch cycles are being postponed or skipped due to personnel shortages — a short-term decision with potentially long-term consequences.

A Disconnect at the Top

Sources suggest that executive-level enthusiasm for emerging technologies — including AI-driven forecasting, smart shelves, and omnichannel integration — has outpaced the operational capacity of the teams tasked with implementation.

“Leadership wants retail to move at the speed of Silicon Valley,” said a backend specialist working on point-of-sale upgrades in British Columbia. “But they forget we’re doing this while keeping decades-old systems running in the background.”

What It Means for Customers

The effects of burnout don’t just stay behind the firewall. Delayed maintenance, rushed deployments, and gaps in monitoring can all increase the risk of outages, checkout disruptions, and data breaches.

“If defenders are stretched thin, customer data becomes the collateral damage,” said an analyst from the Canadian Consumer Cyber Alliance (CCCA).

No National Strategy… Yet

Despite growing industry concern, Canada currently lacks a federal strategy to support digital infrastructure workers in high-demand civilian sectors like retail and healthcare. Labor advocates say this omission must be addressed before cracks in the system become visible to the public.

As part of ODTN News’ continuing coverage of Canada’s digital transformation, our Retail Watch desk will monitor how retailers — and policymakers — respond to what many are calling a silent crisis at the heart of the modern economy.

On the ground, where infrastructure meets everyday life. — Marcus Tran

ODTN News’ Mira Evans contributed to this report.