NEWS REFERENCE
According to a report by BetaKit — Canadian Tech & Startup News, published on March 24, 2026, Kitchener-Waterloo-based information management company OpenText has laid off 4% of its global workforce — affecting approximately 880 of its 22,000 employees. The cuts span engineers, community managers, senior analysts, and team leads across the United States, Canada, and India. OpenText described the cuts as part of an ongoing effort to align with its strategic priorities, stating that decisions impacting employees are “never taken lightly.”
What OpenText Is Saying — And What It Means For You Legally
OpenText has framed these cuts as part of a broader “business optimization plan” — a three-year restructuring effort that has now resulted in three separate rounds of layoffs since 2024. The company has cut 1,200 employees, then 1,600, and now approximately 880 more. Leadership has repeatedly pointed to AI as the company’s core strategic direction, with the previous CEO telling staff that embracing AI was a “number one priority and baseline expectation.”
None of that changes what you are legally owed.
Under Canadian employment law, the reason behind a termination — whether it is restructuring, AI adoption, cost-cutting, or a change in leadership — does not reduce your entitlements as an employee. A termination without cause is a termination without cause, regardless of how it is packaged or explained. OpenText is a billion-dollar company with annual recurring revenue exceeding $1 billion USD. Its size and payroll trigger the highest level of severance obligations under Ontario law, and that works in your favour.
What happened to you was not personal. But how you respond to it should be informed, deliberate, and legally protected.
What You Are Legally Entitled To As An Ontario OpenText Employee
If you were employed by OpenText in Ontario and your position has been terminated, the following entitlements apply to you:
ESA termination pay
Under Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000, you are entitled to a minimum of one week of notice — or pay in lieu of notice — for each year of service, up to a maximum of eight weeks. This is the legal floor, not the ceiling. For someone who has spent five, ten, or seventeen years at OpenText, even the statutory minimum represents a meaningful amount — but for most employees, it is only the beginning of what they are owed.
ESA severance pay
OpenText’s annual revenues far exceed the $2.5 million Ontario payroll threshold that triggers ESA severance obligations. That means if you have been employed for five or more years, you are entitled to an additional one week’s pay for each full or partial year of service — up to a maximum of 26 weeks. This amount is completely separate from your termination notice entitlement. They are two distinct obligations, and both must be paid.
Common law reasonable notice — often far more
The ESA sets the minimum. Ontario courts have consistently awarded employees significantly greater amounts under the common law, based on a careful assessment of your individual circumstances — your age, your length of service, the seniority and specialized nature of your role, and how difficult it will be to find comparable work in your field. For a senior engineer or analyst who has spent over a decade at OpenText working on a specialized product, common law reasonable notice could amount to 14, 18, or even 24 months of total compensation. That is many times what the ESA alone provides.
Bonus and incentive entitlements
If you participated in a bonus program, profit-sharing arrangement, or any performance-based incentive plan, those entitlements do not simply disappear because your employment has ended. Courts in Ontario have consistently held that if a bonus was near-earned at the time of termination — meaning you were partway through a cycle when you were let go — you are entitled to a pro-rated portion. Do not assume this will be included automatically. It often is not, and it must be specifically claimed.
Vacation pay
Any vacation time you have earned but not yet taken must be paid out in full in your final paycheque. This is a basic but frequently miscalculated entitlement. Check your records carefully against what you actually receive, and flag any discrepancy immediately.
Benefits continuation
During any working notice period, your employer is required to maintain your benefits — health, dental, life insurance, and any other coverage you were receiving. If you are given pay in lieu of notice rather than working notice, the value of those benefits during the notice period must be factored into your overall package.
OpenText's Restructuring History — Why It Matters To Your Claim
This is not the first time OpenText has gone through this. The company cut 1,200 employees in 2024, another 1,600 in May 2025, and now approximately 880 more in 2026. That pattern of repeated restructuring is relevant to your claim in two ways.
First, it speaks to the difficulty of finding comparable work. Ontario courts factor in how hard it will be for you to find a similar role when assessing reasonable notice. In a sector where your own former employer has been repeatedly downsizing and competitors are similarly contracting, that difficulty is real and demonstrable.
Second, it reinforces that this termination was a business decision — entirely unrelated to your performance, your conduct, or your value as an employee. Courts in Ontario do not reduce severance because a company decided to cut costs or pivot to AI. If anything, the fact that your role was eliminated by corporate strategy rather than anything you did strengthens the case for a full and fair notice period.
Steps To Take Right Now
OpenText will present you with a separation agreement and a release. That release, once signed, ends your right to claim anything further. You are not required to sign it immediately, and no legitimate employer can force you to. Take the full time you are given, and do not let any deadline pressure you into signing before you fully understand what you are giving up.
The moment you are terminated, your access to company systems can be revoked quickly. Before that happens, download and keep a copy of your employment contract and all offer letters, your compensation records including base salary and bonus history, your most recent pay stubs, any equity or incentive plan documentation, performance reviews and commendations, and all written communications related to your termination. Once access is gone, recovering these documents becomes significantly harder.
Your full termination entitlement includes your base salary during the notice period, any bonus you were near-earning, the value of benefits continuation, accrued vacation pay, and — most critically — your common law reasonable notice entitlement assessed on your individual facts. Do not compare the offer to zero. Compare it to what the law actually says you are owed.
A lawyer will assess whether your employment contract contains a termination clause that limits your common law entitlement, calculate your likely reasonable notice range, review the release clause, identify any components of your compensation that have been overlooked, and negotiate on your behalf if appropriate. In most cases the cost of that advice is recovered many times over in an improved settlement.
If OpenText terminated 50 or more employees in Ontario within a four-week period — which, given the scale of these cuts, is entirely plausible — Ontario’s mass termination provisions under Part XV of the ESA are triggered. These require enhanced minimum notice of up to 16 weeks on top of individual entitlements, and OpenText is required to file a notice with the Director of Employment Standards. If those obligations were not met, additional claims may be available to you.
Apply for EI at Service Canada as soon as possible, even if you are in the middle of reviewing or negotiating your severance package. There is a waiting period, and delays in applying directly affect your total entitlement. The two processes can and should run at the same time.
In Ontario, the general limitation period for civil claims is two years from the date you knew or ought to have known about your entitlement. Some administrative claims have shorter windows. The sooner you get advice, the more options remain open to you.
The bottom line: You gave this company years of your career. Ontario law protects what that is worth. We are here to help you claim it.
