Who is eligible

Eligible employers

To be eligible for a Work-Sharing agreement, your business or organization must:

Ineligible employers

Your business is not eligible for Work-Sharing if it is experiencing reduced business activity due to:

  • a labour dispute
    • includes work slowdowns, strikes, lockouts and work stoppages.
  • a cyclical or seasonal shortage of work
  • the decrease in business activity is due to an increase in the number of employees, or
  • business decisions (i.e., to increase efficiencies or profits by reducing staffing levels)

Employers are not eligible if they are:

  • an employer who operates solely for the purpose of carrying out the administration of a government program/activity, such as:
    • municipalities, or
    • Government Agencies
  • self-employed

Eligible employees

To be eligible for Work-Sharing Employment Benefits, your employees must:

Some employers may have been unable to avoid layoffs prior to applying to participate in Work-Sharing. Core staff recently laid off may be included in the Work-Sharing unit.

*Please Note: Employees participating in Work-Sharing must qualify to receive Employment Insurance benefits. An employee’s eligibility will be determined after the employee has filed for Employment Insurance benefits. The employee does not have to inform their employer of the status of their eligibility for Employment Insurance benefits. Employees may refuse to be part of a Work-Sharing agreement or may not be eligible for Employment Insurance benefits. In either case, they are required to reduce their hours of work on an equitable basis with employees who are members of the Work-Sharing agreement.

Ineligible employees

Employees that are not eligible for Work-Sharing include:

  • seasonal employees (for example: lifeguards, ski resort employees, etc.)
  • students hired for the summer or a co-op term
  • employees hired on a casual / on-call basis
  • contracted temporary help agency workers
  • self-employed
  • employees considered essential to the recovery and viability of the business: for example, sales employees/agents, technical employees engaged in product development, executive marketing agents, senior management responsible for recovery, and
  • those responsible for the direction of the company and who hold more than 40% of the voting shares in the business and/or who are investors
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