Employment Insurance Work-Sharing Program (work-sharing)

(As of May 5, 2020)

Work-sharing helps employers and workers avoid layoffs when there is a temporary business slowdown that is beyond the employer’s control (such as this pandemic).
Workers and their employer agree to reduced hours and shared work. Employment Insurance (EI) pays a portion of the wages lost based on regular EI rules to ease the blow of reduced hours.

Why do it?

Helps keep people working, maintains a higher level of income than if laid off or on EI or CERB.
Helps employers retain qualified and experienced workers.

Permanent, full-time and part-time employees needed for day-to-day functions. Employees essential to the recovery and viability of the business. Must be eligible for EI as well.
Private companies, Government Business Enterprises, and not-for-profit organizations.
Ineligible workers: seasonal, casual, on-call, temporary, self-employed, summer or co-op students.

Equal sharing of work: all workers agree to reduce their hours by the same percentage.
Hours must be reduced by 10% to 60%. Reduction can vary weekly and average over agreement.
Duration: 6 consecutive weeks minimum to 38 weeks. If entering the agreement due to COVID-19 the maximum can be extended to 76 weeks for applications received until March 14, 2021.
Mandatory cooling-off periods waived for employers who have already used the program.
Eligibility has been expanded to businesses that have only been in business for one year.
Employers requested to submit their application 10 calendar days before desired start date.

Reduction	Laid off	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%
Gross weekly income retained	$0.00	$1,211.54	$1,076.92	$942.31	$807.69	$673.08	$538.46
Lost weekly income paid	$573.00	$57.30	$114.60	$171.90	$229.20	$286.50	$343.80
New weekly gross	$573.00	$1,268.84	$1,191.52	$1,114.21	$1,036.89	$959.58	$882.26

* Note, this example is strictly for illustrative purposes. Specific income amounts will vary case by case.