Glossary - Employment and Work
Severance pay is not the same as termination pay or pay in lieu of notice. The Employment Standards Act gives some people the right to severance pay when they lose their jobs.
You get severance pay only if you’ve worked at least 5 years for your employer and:
- your employer pays wages of at least $2.5 million a year, or
- at least 50 people will be losing their jobs within a 6-month period because the business is being cut back.
The basic rule is that severance pay is one week’s pay for each year you’ve worked for your employer, up to 26 weeks.
If you’re a temporary foreign worker in Canada, sexual abuse means that your employer does things like:
- force you, with or without a weapon, into sexual acts that you don’t want
- use physical force or threaten you so you’ll have sex with them
- force you to have sex with other people who you don’t want to have sex with
- force you to have sex when you’re not able to give consent because of an illness or disability, or because you’re under the influence or alcohol or drugs
In Employment and Work, Income Assistance
A Social Insurance Number (SIN) is a 9-digit number that you need to work in Canada or to use government programs and get benefits.
You might qualify for special EI benefits if you need time off work for certain reasons. Special EI benefits include maternity, parental, sickness, compassionate care, and parents of critically ill children benefits.
In Employment and Work, Getting paid, Wages, Overtime, Vacation & holiday pay , Pay deductions
The law says that there are certain amounts that an employer must take from an employee’s wages. These are called statutory deductions.
For example, employers must take money for income taxes, Employment Insurance (EI) premiums, and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contributions.
An employer cannot take more than what the law allows. And they must send the money to the proper place.
