Working notice vs pay in lieu (2026): the employer's choice and what it changes

Your employer picks. Every Canadian employment standards statute lets an employer either give you written notice and keep you working through it, or pay you the wages you would have earned in that period and end the job on the spot, or mix the two so the weeks add up. The number of weeks is the same whichever route it takes: 6 weeks in Ontario at six years, 6 weeks federally, 4 weeks in Nova Scotia. What changes is what has to keep running while the clock does, and every week you actually work comes off the money at the end. This page is part of the severance pay hub.

Updated September 6, 2026 · Figures verified against the statutes of each jurisdiction · see all figures and their sources

Reviewed on September 6, 2026. Each row links to that jurisdiction and to the section of its statute.

The choice belongs to the employer, not to you

None of the fourteen statutes gives the employee a say in it. Ontario's Act lets the employer end the job with no notice, or with short notice, by paying termination pay in a lump sum equal to what you would have been paid during the missing notice period (ESA s. 61). Nova Scotia's Code lets the employer end the employment "forthwith" on written notice to that effect plus pay for the whole notice period it should have given (LSC s. 72). New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are all built the same way (ESA s. 34, PEI ESA s. 59, Yukon ESA s. 51, NWT ESA s. 39, Nunavut LSA s. 14.03).

British Columbia turns the default around. There the money is the rule: the employer owes compensation for length of service on the day the employment ends unless it has discharged that debt by giving written notice (BC ESA s. 63). Quebec is the same shape, with the compensatory indemnity due when the job ends unless the notice was given (LSA s. 83).

Working notice is cheaper for an employer, because it gets work for the money. Pay in lieu is faster and cleaner. Neither is more legal than the other.

What must keep running during working notice

This is where working notice can go wrong, and where most of the statutory protection sits. Most of the statutes freeze your terms of employment for the whole notice period, so that a week of "notice" cannot quietly become a week on worse conditions.

• Ontario: the employer cannot cut your wage rate or change any other term of employment, must pay at least your regular wages for a regular work week each week, and must keep making the benefit-plan contributions needed to maintain your benefits until the notice period ends (ESA s. 60).
• Federally: no cut to your wage rate and no change to any term or condition without your written consent, at your regular rate for your regular hours until the date in the notice (CLC s. 231).
• British Columbia: your wage rate and every other condition are frozen without your written consent or your union's, and a notice period has no effect at all if it overlaps your vacation, a leave, a temporary layoff, a strike or lockout, or time off for medical reasons (BC ESA s. 67).
• Alberta: wages, wage rate and every other term stay as they were until the job actually ends, whether or not you are asked to work, and the employer cannot make you use up banked overtime (ESC s. 61).
• The Northwest Territories and Nunavut go furthest: the employer must keep paying wages and providing benefits at least equal to what you would have had working your usual hours, "whether or not any work is actually required or performed" (NWT ESA s. 38, Nunavut LSA s. 14.08).
• Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Yukon all freeze the wage rate and conditions once notice has been given by either side (ESC s. 76, LSC s. 74, Yukon ESA s. 54).
• Quebec: the contract simply continues during the notice period, so wages and conditions run on as before (LSA s. 82).

New Brunswick is the exception worth knowing. Its Act contains no freeze on wages or conditions during the notice period at all. What it does have is a rule about overrunning the notice, set out below.

Your vacation is not your notice

A recurring move is to send an employee off on accumulated vacation and call it working notice. Most statutes block it outright. Manitoba says the annual vacation cannot be counted as part of the notice period (ESC s. 76). Saskatchewan says the employer cannot make you take vacation leave as part of it (SEA s. 2-60). Alberta forbids forcing vacation during notice unless you were already told to take it before the notice was given (ESC s. 61). Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Newfoundland and Labrador all say some version of the same thing (PEI ESA s. 59, Yukon ESA s. 54, NWT ESA s. 38, Nunavut LSA s. 14.08, NL LSA s. 12). Nova Scotia allows it only where you agree to take the vacation after the notice was given (NS LSC Regs s. 8), and in British Columbia a notice period that overlaps your vacation simply has no effect (BC ESA s. 67).

Mixing notice and pay

Splitting the entitlement is normal and lawful. The federal Code says it in the plainest terms: the employer gives written notice, pays wages in lieu, or mixes the two so the weeks add up (CLC s. 230). Ontario allows short notice topped up with termination pay for the balance (ESA s. 61). New Brunswick's payment in lieu is measured against the pay you would have earned in the notice period section 30 would have given you (ESA s. 34).

Yukon adds a wrinkle in your favour and against your cash flow: the employer may pay termination pay in instalments on your usual pay days, provided the whole amount reaches you within the period the notice would have covered (Yukon ESA s. 51).

Notice you actually worked comes off the money

This is the arithmetic the calculator does, and it is the single most common misunderstanding about termination pay. The statutory entitlement is a number of weeks. Written working notice you were actually given, and worked, uses up part of that number. The money owed at the end covers the balance, not the whole schedule again. Your own jurisdiction's schedule, with its section, is on its page under severance and termination pay.

Three conditions have to be met before a week counts against your entitlement, and they come from the sections above:

• The notice has to be written. A conversation is not statutory notice in any of these Acts.
• Your terms have to be maintained through it. In most jurisdictions a cut to your wage rate or hours during the notice period is a contravention in itself.
• The period has to be notice, not vacation, not a layoff and not a leave.

Some statutes also cancel the notice if the job keeps going past it. New Brunswick extinguishes the notice if you keep working a month or more beyond the notice period, and the employer has to start again (ESA s. 30). Federally, staying on more than two weeks past the date in the notice means fresh notice is required (CLC s. 231). Prince Edward Island uses thirty days (PEI ESA s. 59), and Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut simply make the notice void if you work past the date in it (Yukon ESA s. 54, NWT ESA s. 38, Nunavut LSA s. 14.08).

How the money is measured when it is paid out

Pay in lieu is a regular work week, not your best week. The statutes say so in different ways, and the differences are real money for anyone with variable pay:

• Alberta averages your wages over the last thirteen weeks in which you actually worked, where pay varies from period to period (ESC s. 57).
• Saskatchewan owes the greater of what you actually earned in the missing period and your normal wages for it, using a thirteen-week average where weekly pay moves, excluding overtime (SEA s. 2-61).
• British Columbia totals your weekly wages at the regular wage over the last eight weeks in which you worked normal or average hours, and divides by eight (BC ESA s. 63).
• Quebec pays your regular wage excluding overtime, with a three-month average of complete pay periods for commission earners (LSA s. 83).
• Newfoundland and Labrador is the outlier that pays more: its normal wages expressly include the overtime you would have worked, judged by the month before the job ended (NL LSA s. 53).
• The Northwest Territories and Nunavut measure wages and benefits, not wages alone (NWT ESA s. 39, Nunavut LSA s. 14.03).

Manitoba adds the rule everyone hopes for and few expect: the wage in lieu is owed whether or not you found another job during the notice period (ESC s. 77).

A worked example

Owen has six years with an Ontario employer and is paid $1,100 a week. On a Monday he is handed a letter giving him written notice, and he works two weeks before the employer decides to end it there and pay out the rest.

• His entitlement: 6 weeks at six years (ESA s. 57).
• Worked: two weeks, on full pay, with his benefits maintained as section 60 requires.
• Owed as termination pay: the balance of the notice, $4,400.00.
• On top of that: his accrued vacation pay at 6%, his unpaid regular wages, and public holiday pay for any holiday that fell inside the notice period.
• Due by the later of 7 days and his next pay day (ESA s. 11).

Had Owen been sent home on day one, the arithmetic would be the full $6,600.00 instead. Had his employer cut his hours during the two weeks he worked, those weeks would be open to challenge as notice, because section 60 requires at least his regular wages for a regular work week.