Employment Law @ Gowlings - March 30, 2009

We have been receiving many calls as of late from employers who must cut costs in order to keep the doors open. Regrettably, cost cutting measures typically involve reducing employee remuneration, either through pay reductions, reduced work weeks, lay-offs, or terminations. This bulletin is meant to provide some guidance in dealing with the staffing issues faced by employers everyday, but certainly magnified in these tough economic times.

Lay-Offs

Many employers who are experiencing financial difficulty, and need to reduce staffing costs, do not want to take the drastic, costly, and often irreversible step of terminating employment. Instead, they come to us asking how they can go about putting some of their employees on a temporary lay-off until things turn around. It has become apparent that many employers are under the understandable misconception that they have the right to put any and all employees on lay-off at will. This is, for the most part, untrue.