Does applying for restoration reset the clock on qualifying work experience for permanent residence?

Restoration itself does not erase work already properly authorized and performed before your status lapsed. The bigger risk is a gap in valid status — if maintained status did not apply because you had already fallen out of status before applying for restoration, that gap can affect whether the time on either side of it counts toward economic programs like the Canadian Experience Class, since those programs generally require the qualifying work to have been authorized at the time it was performed.

This is a nuanced area because the rules about exactly which periods count, and how gaps are treated, have been adjusted over time, so a general assumption from an older case or a different applicant's experience may not reflect the current approach. Someone who worked properly under a valid permit, then had a gap before successfully restoring status, should not assume either that all prior work still counts or that it has all been lost.

Because this can materially affect eligibility for a permanent residence application built around qualifying work experience, confirming the current rules for exactly how a restoration and any related gap are treated is worth doing before relying on any specific period of work.