Oshawa native Todd Forbes is one of some 2,000 workers who are set to be laid off in January when General Motors cuts the third shift at its Oshawa, Ont., plant. Some are considering moving elsewhere, amid high unemployment rates in the city and an auto industry under threat from U.S. tariffs.

Oshawa native Todd Forbes doesn't want to leave his hometown.

His apartment is in the south-central area of the Ontario city, the industrial heart where tens of thousands of General Motors workers have made a living since the company's plant there opened in 1918.

But come Jan. 30, when GM Canada is set to cut the midnight shift at its Oshawa plant, Forbes will be out of a job. He doesn't think he'll find employment in the city of some 185,000 people, where he was born and raised, where his four children and seven grandchildren live.

"It's definitely gut wrenching … I've lived in this area my whole life," he said.

Instead, Forbes, 48, is considering moving to Nova Scotia with his wife and their dog, Gizmo. He said he thinks he's more likely to find a job there — despite having experience in manufacturing, maintenance, waste management, retail and sales.

For more than a year now, Forbes has worked at TFT Global Inc., which supplies auto parts to the Oshawa GM plant. It was his first full-time job after he finished treatment for cancer and completed a college program in law and security.

But Forbes thinks his employment gap, plus Oshawa's nine per cent unemployment rate, will work against him.

"I'm looking at, 'Is there a job possibility where I'm mak