Employment Standards

Ontario's ESA covers the whole arc of a job. While you're working, it guarantees overtime pay — time and a half after 44 hours in a week — and vacation pay of 4% or 6% of your wages. When a job ends without cause, it sets two more floors: termination notice from one to eight weeks by length of service, which covers almost everyone, and statutory severance, a separate and larger entitlement only long-service employees at sizeable employers qualify for. All four are the legislated minimum — the termination pieces in particular are separate from common-law reasonable notice, which can be much larger and is a question for an employment lawyer, not a calculator.