There was a story in the news a few days ago where, with the changeover to HST, some tax jobs are changing from provincial to federal and the people who hold those jobs are getting severance pay even though they're going directly to work for federal. This is being presented in the media as an outrage.
This leaves me with one question to which I don't know the answer: what would happen in a similar situation in a private sector? I've never been in a situation in which severance pay is involved, but it seems to me just based on logic that you'd still get severance pay. You lose your job because your employer no longer provides your particular service. So you either apply to or are recruited by the people who now do provide that service. That's a sensible way to go about job search/staffing. But severance pay is not a function of how sensible or successful the laid off employees' job search is, it's a function of the nature of the lay-off, no?
So, in the private sector, when there are layoffs with flawless outplacement, do the laid off workers still get severance?
4 comments:
I don't know the answer to your question, but I know I'm damn sick of all this outrage over people getting treated decently.
I believe the general rule of thumb when employment is terminated is one week's salary per year of service. Labour Law for the Private Sector falls under provincial legislation, my only experience is with Ontario. I'll look into it and let you know if what I've written here is incorrect or out of date.
For employees that could be called back to work I really don't know. My brother is going through that right now. He was laid off, then called back to work and has been working continuously for the last two weeks but he hasn't formally been reinstated. I'm also concerned that this might screw him for qualifying for the government's apprenticeship grants, which he was looking into before being called back to work.
http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/pubs/guide/severance.php
The good thing is that severance pay is over an above "termination pay or notice in lieu of termination pay". The bad news is you need to be with an employer for five years or more before qualifying for severance pay. Not very generous in my book, especially for recent grads that have only been in the work force a couple of years.
It doesn't seem to say anything about the nature of the employee's next job, does it?
Post a Comment