What is uninterrupted service and how is it calculated?
Short answer
In Quebec, uninterrupted service is the uninterrupted period during which the employee is bound to the employer by a contract of employment, even if the performance of the work has been interrupted without the contract being terminated (s. 1 of the Act respecting labour standards).
In detail
This notion is decisive because several rights depend on it: 3 months for the 2 paid days of absence and for the notice of termination of employment, 1 year for the length of vacation, 3 years for the third week and the 6% indemnity, 2 years for the remedy against a dismissal without good and sufficient cause.
Uninterrupted service is not broken by paid holidays, vacation, absences for illness or for family reasons, or by a temporary layoff followed by a recall. Fixed-term contracts that follow one another without a real interruption may also be added together.
Uninterrupted service also follows the business: the alienation or the total or partial transfer of a business does not break the employment relationship for the purposes of the Act (s. 97). A change of owner therefore does not reset the counter to zero.
What to document
Your original hire date, each contract you signed and its dates, the periods of layoff and recall, the changes of owner or of business name, and your successive records of employment. A continuous timeline, supported by verifiable dates, is what allows length of service to be established.
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
- Act respecting labour standards (CQLR, c. N-1.1) — Légis Québec
- Act respecting labour standards — full text (CanLII)
- CNESST (MALNT) — Definitions of key concepts
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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.