How Does Company Size Impact Severance Pay Ontario?
Company Size Impact Severance Pay Ontario
The loss of a job can be a traumatic experience for many employees. It’s not only a major disruption to your life and career but it can also lead to a whirlwind of uncertainty about what you will do next and how you will pay the bills in the meantime. That’s why severance pay ontario is crucial and why employers have obligations to provide it when they end employment in the province of Ontario.
A severance package is comprised of a combination of compensation such as wages, benefits, car allowance, and more. These are all considered when determining what constitutes a fair offer. The minimums for severance pay Ontario are set out in the Employment Standards Act (ESA). However, an employer cannot ignore their obligation to pay more than the ESA minimums and there is a lot of common law consideration that influences what you are owed upon termination.
The size of a company has a direct impact on the amount of severance you are entitled to receive. A smaller company is likely to have a lower payroll and may have difficulty affording to pay as much as a larger corporation. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to know your rights and have an experienced employment lawyer on your side.
How Does Company Size Impact Severance Pay Ontario?
For non-unionized workers in Ontario, the company that they work for has a legal duty to pay them severance pay if their employer sells a business and they are displaced as a result. This includes companies that are based in other Canadian jurisdictions, federally regulated employers and even if the employer is a large multinational corporation. The only way that a company can avoid paying severance is by being able to prove that they had cause to terminate the employee’s employment, which is very difficult for an employer to do.
Aside from severance pay, the new owner of a business must honour an employee’s length of service at the previous location of the company that they are purchasing. This is an obligation that all employers have to adhere to and it is a significant factor when calculating how much severance you are entitled to.
Severance pay is not a negotiable item in Canada. While it can be a great incentive for an employer to negotiate with you during the termination process, it is important that you understand your rights and what minimums are required in order to protect yourself. An experienced employment lawyer at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP can use various laws and factors to determine how much you are owed upon termination and help you negotiate a fair offer.
There is a lot of confusion about what exactly qualifies as severance pay. Many online severance pay calculators can give you a rough estimate, but there are a wide range of considerations that must be taken into account by an experienced employment lawyer when determining what you are owed at common law. To learn more about your options, contact the Toronto employment lawyers at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP today.
