{"id":46655,"date":"2012-04-10T18:48:39","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T22:48:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-05-01T16:40:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:40:50","slug":"what-about-severance-pay","status":"publish","type":"publications-page","link":"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/what-about-severance-pay","title":{"rendered":"What about severance pay?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the ESA, severance pay is not the same thing as termination pay. Severance pay is another payment that some people get when they lose their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>You get severance pay <strong>only<\/strong> if you have worked at least 5 years for your employer <strong>and<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>your employer pays out wages of at least $2.5 million<br \/>\na year, or<\/li>\n<li>at least 50 people will be losing their jobs within a 6-month period. And this is because the employer is permanently closing some or all of their business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>When you will not get severance pay<\/h2>\n<p>You will not get severance pay if your employer is closing down their business because it was affected so badly by a strike that they cannot continue.<\/p>\n<p>There are other reasons why you could lose your right to severance pay. For example, this could happen if your employer offers you another job and you do not accept it.<\/p>\n<h2>How much severance pay<\/h2>\n<p>The basic rule is that severance pay is one week&#8217;s pay for each year you worked for your employer. And the <strong>most<\/strong> you can get is 26 weeks. But the rules about severance pay are complicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-46655","publications-page","type-publications-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What about severance pay? - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cleo.on.ca\/en\/publications-page\/what-about-severance-pay\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What about severance pay? - CLEO (Community Legal Education Ontario \/ \u00c9ducation juridique communautaire Ontario)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the ESA, severance pay is not the same thing as termination pay. 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