Losing your job can be one of life’s toughest setbacks, so navigating it with clarity requires taking time to process your emotions, understand your legal rights, and seek professional advice – key steps to getting your career and finances back on track, experts say.
Like mourning a death, getting laid off from your job can drag you through the classic stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The loss of your job not only means loss of income, but also loss of workplace friendships, your identity and purpose.
“People don’t always equate grieving with job loss,” said Farah Kotadia, founder of Wellness Works Counselling in Vancouver.
“By sitting with our grief, we're actually reflecting as well, and we're thinking about our next steps... so take the time to grieve.”
If you miss certain co-workers, Kotadia suggests reaching out to them. “In a job, there's always pieces that we like and pieces that we don't like, so what resonated with you? Where does passion come in?” she said.
Grief in the context of job loss could take a couple of weeks, a few months or even a year to process, said Kotadia. One day, you may feel hopeful sending out five job applications with cover letters and the next day, you may feel like not getting out of bed.
“That's OK. That's normal. That will happen,” she said.
While emotions can run high immediately following a layoff, employment lawyers advise not to act on them.
“I don't want people to take this opportunity to tell their bosses everything they hate about them or bad-mouth the company to others,” said Lior Samfiru, national co-managing partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP.
“All of those things could bring legal action against the individual, but equally as important, may make it that much more difficult in resolving a severance issue."
Samfiru said individuals and employers alike misunderstand provincial employment standards, which often require workers to be paid one week of salary per year of employment.
The standards are just a minimum.
After considering your age, tenure with the company, industry, any medical conditions and the current unemployment rate, severance could be ten to 20 times higher than what’s outlined in employment standards, Samfiru said. That’s why any documentation providing a wholistic view of your income is key to estimating your severance entitlement. This includes your employment agreement, bonus plans or commissions payouts.
Samfiru, whose firm’s website has an online severance pay calculator, advises getting legal advice when faced with job loss as 90 per cent of severance packages initially offered by companies are “inadequate.”
He said he's worked with clients offered one-month of severance when they were entitled to six.
“Those are the gaps we see. They’re significant,” he said.
Severance offers also come with a deadline for acceptance, but Samfiru calls this a common “pressure tactic” used by employers.
“Your legal rights don't expire on Friday at five,” he said. “In fact, you have two years.”
It doesn’t hurt to seek professional financial advice, too. Andrea Andersen, a Calgary-based certified financial planner at Edward Jones, encourages this, especially among younger workers.
“Millennials tend to want to be more independent. They want to be self-directed investors,” she said. “But it’s these times where it’s important that you start building a relationship with (an adviser) who can help direct you.”
If you have monthly car payments or credit card debt for example, Andersen said an adviser can help you present a game plan for the bank on how you can meet these debt obligations.
Advisers may recommend halting your RRSP contributions temporarily to improve your cash flow or structuring your severance in a tax efficient way.
For example, you may want to defer receiving your severance to a low-income-earning year or roll over your severance into your RRSP to avoid paying tax in the current year.
“Usually, it takes a lawyer to broker these types of arrangements as neither employee nor employer tend to think about it,” said Samfiru.
While a job loss can leave you feeling financially vulnerable, Andersen and Samfiru agree the benefits of seeking professional advice outweigh the costs. Legal fees are tax deductible since it’s incurred for the purpose of collecting wages. And often times, the final severance settlement will include compensation for legal fees over and above the severance amount, said Samfiru.
He also recommends applying for EI immediately.
“While you cannot get EI and severance for the same period, EI can kick back in if the severance runs out and you’re still unemployed,” he said.
Andersen, who also has experience in resilience training, highlights three traits that may help you get out of a post-layoff rut: being positive, having a sense of control and having a support group.
She advises defining small, achievable financial goals and building specific expectations for your next role.
“When you know what you're looking for, when you have your reason why, then the motivation will be easier,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 29, 2025.
Cathy Miyagi, The Canadian Press
