The decision of the New Brunswick Queen’s Bench in Miller v Luminultra found that a higher notice period was warranted due to the pandemic. The direct impact of this factor was not specifically stated.

The plaintiff was employed as a Marketing Manager, 55 years of age on termination and had 6 years of service.

The passage dealing with this issue as as follows: (highlighting added)

Plaintiff’s counsel suggests that consideration of the pandemic in determining reasonable notice constitutes a novel issue and that, in considering the same, this Court would be making “new law”. I do not necessarily agree with that characterization. In my view, the pandemic and its impact on the labor market is merely an extension of one of the factors the Court is directed by Bardal to consider: availability of alternative employment. While there is no evidence in the Record of the specific impact of the pandemic on Ms. Miller or the job sector in which she was seeking employment, there can be little doubt that the pandemic and the shutdowns associated with it would have had some impact on Ms. Miller’s ability to find new employment. I agree with the reasoning in Iriotakis that the pandemic is one of many factors to be considered when assessing reasonable notice. I also agree that termination at the point in the pandemic when the Plaintiff was terminated would tend to “tilt” the reasonable notice towards a longer range. Having regard to Ms. Miller’s age, her length of service (six years) and availability of alternative employment, I conclude that the reasonable period of notice is 10 months.