Something When Employment Terminated in Canada

2016-07-29


When your lost job such as employment is terminated due to some reasons such as your employer gets bankrupt, or business did not doing well and your employer has to cut off several job positions. You'd better check related employment law in your province and country to help yourself to get reasonable employment termination package from your employer.

In Canada, there are employment standards which are from Federal government and province government.

For example, Employment Termination, Federal Government gives its define here. Ontario government gives the define here.

Ontario's Employment Termination and Severance

At least, when we get employment termination, we might have 3 important parts in a job termination package: Terminal Pay, Severance Pay and Benefit handling.

An employee is entitled to notice of termination (or termination pay instead of notice) if he or she has been continuously employed for at least three months.

Termination Notice or Pay in lieu of Notice If you are employed and get employment termination and you are qualified to get termination notice, you can check the following table. For example, if you have worked for your employer over 3 years, you can get 3 weeks termination notice or pay in lieu of notice, and with 4% vacation pay. Amount of notice required if an employee has been continuously employed for at least three months

**Period of Employment** **Notice Required**
Less than 1 year 1 week
1 year but less than 3 years 2 weeks
3 years but less than 4 years 3 weeks
4 years but less than 5 years 4 weeks
5 years but less than 6 years 5 weeks
6 years but less than 7 years 6 weeks
7 years but less than 8 years 7 weeks
8 years or more 8 weeks
**Severance Pay** Severance pay is different with termination pay or notice which we mentioned above. _Severance pay is compensation that is paid by an employer to a qualified employee who has his or her employment severed._ **How much Severance Pay can you get ?** Let's us check the Ontario original description (actually it is some confusing, seems when you worked 1 year for employer, you get 1 week wage, but actually it is really depends on the employer, some people said every 1 finished working year should get 1 month Severance Pay from Employer, and it is real, but by now we only see the standard below ) _To calculate the amount of severance pay an employee is entitled to receive, multiply the employee's regular wages for a regular work week by the sum of:_ _the number of completed years of employment; and the number of completed months of employment divided by 12 for a year that is not completed._ _The maximum amount of severance pay required to be paid under the ESA is 26 weeks._ **Benefit ** If you have benefit from your employer, the benefit should be still available in a limited period such as 1 month or 2 months. part of benefit might be cancelled right away. You should check carefully how the description from terminal letter. Anyway, if you had a nice employer, your will get better employment termination package; but if you find your package is unfair, you'd better read government information and decide to whether should find a employment lawyer. Good luck!