What is uninterrupted service and how is it calculated?
In the United States? This answer is Québec and Canadian law. The US side of this site answers different questions, state by state: different law, and different coverage. Go to the US side
Short answer
Under Quebec labour standards, uninterrupted service measures the duration of the employment relationship, including periods without work when the contract continues. It is not simply a total of hours worked. Successive fixed-term contracts may count together when the circumstances show that the relationship continued.
In detail
Start with the hire date and check whether the employment contract actually ended during any gap. Paid or unpaid leave, illness and a temporary layoff do not reset the calculation merely because no work was performed; the contractual link must remain.
For seasonal employment, examine the parties' intention to resume each year, recall practices and renewal communications. A new document each season does not by itself settle whether service continued. Conversely, a genuinely ended contract followed by separate new employment can break continuity.
This statutory concept differs from seniority calculated under a collective agreement. A sale, transfer or restructuring covered by section 97 does not itself reset service. Calculate service at the date relevant to the particular right; each benefit or remedy has its own conditions.
What to document
Build a timeline of hiring, contracts, leave, layoffs, recalls and ownership changes. Keep records of employment and messages about returning next season. Distinguish a pause in work from evidence that the employment relationship ended.
Put your facts in writing, free. Writing your version down early, keeping your documents dated and preparing your questions for a lawyer: the tool is there to document, never to advise.
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Official sources
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What this page is not
This is general legal information about the law of Quebec and Canada, dated and sourced. It is not legal advice, not a strategy, and not a prediction about the outcome of a case. In Quebec, only lawyers and notaries may give legal advice (Act respecting the Barreau du Québec, ss. 128 and 133). Laws and amounts change: the official source always prevails over us.