The Employment Standards Act sets a floor. Most non-union employees are entitled to considerably more than that floor, and most severance offers are written as though the floor were the ceiling.
Enter your completed years and months of service, your regular weekly pay, and whether your employer's payroll is $2.5 million or more. The estimate updates instantly — no email required.
This is the statutory floor only. Whether your contract validly limits you to it — and what common law reasonable notice would actually be — is exactly what's worth having reviewed before you sign anything.
The short version — the calculator above does the actual math for you.
Notice is one week per completed year of employment, capped at eight weeks. Nearly every non-union employee with at least three months of service is entitled to it, either worked or paid in lieu.
Severance is separate and additional: a further week per completed year, plus a proportional amount for a part-year, to a maximum of 26 weeks. Under section 64 of the Employment Standards Act, it's owed only where the employee has at least five years of service and the employer's payroll is $2.5 million or more (a separate route applies to a mass severance of 50 or more employees within six months from a business shutdown). Plenty of employers pay notice and quietly leave out severance where it's actually owed.
The ESA is a floor. Common law is the real entitlement for most people.
The ESA sets a statutory minimum, not a measure of what a court would award. Common law reasonable notice is the actual entitlement for most non-union employees, and it's routinely several times the ESA figure — a rough (and imperfect) rule of thumb is around a month per year of service, adjusted for age, seniority, and how hard the role is to replace.
An employer can limit you to the ESA minimum, but only with a termination clause that's validly drafted, and many aren't — a clause that fails anywhere in its wording usually fails entirely. Whether the clause in your contract actually holds up is the question worth asking before you accept an offer or sign a release.
Say you've completed 7 years and 6 months of service, earning $1,500 a week, at an employer whose payroll is $2.5 million or more:
That's the statutory floor only — common law reasonable notice on 7.5 years of service is typically well above it unless a valid contract clause caps you at the ESA minimum. Run your own numbers in the calculator above.
One week per year of employment, to a maximum of eight weeks. There is no ESA notice entitlement in the first three months of employment.
An employee with five or more years of service, where the employer's payroll is at least $2.5 million. Severance is one week per completed year plus a proportion for a part-year, to a maximum of 26 weeks, and it is on top of notice — not instead of it.
Usually not. Common law reasonable notice is generally much higher than the ESA minimum. You are limited to the minimum only if your employment contract contains a termination clause that is valid and enforceable, which is a question worth having reviewed before you accept an offer.
Not before it is reviewed. A release is final. Signing it ends any claim for additional notice, and the offer on the table is frequently the statutory minimum presented as though it were generous.
No — there are two routes. Most individual terminations turn on the employer's payroll being $2.5 million or more, which is what this calculator checks. A separate route applies where 50 or more employees are severed within six months because of a permanent, partial or full shutdown of the business.
Send us a message with your numbers — our Team reads it and replies with next steps, usually within one business day.