• By: Allen Brown

4 important Ottawa employment laws you need to know about

Did you know that Ottawa is the fourth-largest municipality in Canada with almost one million residents? If you are a new business operating in Ottawa, there are some critical employment laws that you have to be aware of.

Keep reading to learn more about these laws to make sure you do not accidentally break any laws in the future.

1. Overtime Pay

The Ministry of Labour requires overtime pay but, if an employee's job description fits certain criteria then they might be exempt from getting overtime. For those employees that do receive overtime pay, you have to make sure that they fill in timesheets for hourly attendance.

You then have to pay those employees bi-weekly for their time at 1.5 times their regular rate or 1.5 hours of vacation for every hour they work over their 44 hour week.

2. Pregnancy and Parental Leave

Any employees that are pregnant and are covered by the Employee Standard Act (ESA) that have been employed for at least 13 weeks before the due date will qualify for pregnancy leave. This will include term contract employees, full time, permanent, or part-time workers.

Qualified employees are entitled to 17 weeks of unpaid leave and some can opt to extend longer than the allotted weeks depending on the circumstances.

Parental leave is for both parents to take off for either 61 to 63 weeks as long as they are covered by the ESA. Parents include birth parents or adoptive parents.

3. Terminations

If you decide to terminate an employee's job that has been working for you for at least three months, you have to provide them with a written notice, a payment in lieu of, or both. You will have to give them notice but the ESA does not require giving the employee a reason.

The only way that employees can seek severance is if they have been employed a minimum of five years and have had a payroll of at least $2.5 million CAD. This severance pay is determined by multiplying the weekly salary amount by the number of years the employee was working for you. In some cases, you might have to take the time to create pay stub for future reference.

4. Vacation Leave

Employees that are not exempt from vacation pay can take up to two weeks every year for their first four years of employment. If they are employed for five or more years then they can take up to three weeks off.

The amount of vacation pay depends on the length of employment as well. Those with up to four years of employment can receive 4% of their gross yearly pay. Employees working 5+ years can receive at least 6%.

Now You're Familiar With the Employment Laws

As you can see these are very important employment laws that you do not want to mess around with. The last thing you need for your business is any legal issues for simply not being familiar with certain employment legalities.

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Photo: @timmykp,Unsplash