What to do if you’ve been newly laid off – Globe and Mail

Millions of Canadians have found themselves laid off temporarily or permanently as businesses respond to the impacts of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my nearly 20 years of practice,” employment lawyer Lior Samfiru, partners at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, told Jared Lindzon in the Globe and Mail. “I’ve never seen so many layoffs in such a short period of time, across all industries, employers of all sizes and all locations.”

“That’s not something employers do often, but in this situation a lot of employers hope this is only a temporary thing, so they’ll lay off employees temporarily,” he says. “For most employers, a temporary layoff is actually illegal, and what I mean by that is it gives the employee the option to treat that as a termination and require the employer to pay severance.”

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