What is a week as per IRCC's definition?

[indianstudent96]

I am asking this question to ensure IRCC calculates the work experience the same way as I do. I know they do not count over 30 hrs a week. I worked at a remote gold mine for 80 hrs from 16 July 2019 to 23 July 2019. This involved two standard weeks (Sunday to Saturday), I worked for 50 hrs in the first week followed by 30 hrs in the second week. I simply counted this as two weeks of full-time work experience towards IRCC's MEC of 52 weeks for CEC. The question here is if IRCC calculates weeks based on calendar days or the definition of a week in Canada (Sunday to Saturday)? If you look at my case, I worked only for 8 calendar days, however, they are two standard weeks. How does IRCC interpret this?

 

[jes_ON]

I am asking this question to ensure IRCC calculates the work experience the same way as I do. I know they do not count over 30 hrs a week. I worked at a remote gold mine for 80 hrs from 16 July 2019 to 23 July 2019. This involved two standard weeks (Sunday to Saturday), I worked for 50 hrs in the first week followed by 30 hrs in the second week. I simply counted this as two weeks of full-time work experience towards IRCC's MEC of 52 weeks for CEC. The question here is if IRCC calculates weeks based on calendar days or the definition of a week in Canada (Sunday to Saturday)? If you look at my case, I worked only for 8 calendar days, however, they are two standard weeks. How does IRCC interpret this?

I am not sure what you mean by "Calendar Days," since to me that means the same thing as Sunday through Saturday, but as long as you had at least 30 hours in the calendar week, then it counts as a full-time week, so you should be OK to count that as two weeks.

 

[indianstudent96]

I am not sure what you mean by "Calendar Days," since to me that means the same thing as Sunday through Saturday, but as long as you had at least 30 hours in the calendar week, then it counts as a full-time week, so you should be OK to count that as two weeks.

Thanks, Jes. I meant the difference between July 23, 2019, and July 16, 2019, is literally 7 days. Would it cause any confusion? It was also a fly-in-fly-out opportunity, so I worked 10 hours every day. Both July 16th and July 23rd were Tuesdays in 2019. I counted the hours like this:

Week 1 - July 16 (Tuesday) to July 20 (Saturday) - 50 hours
Week 2 - July 21 (Sunday) to July 23 (Tuesday) - 30 hours

This is reflected in my weekly pay stubs too. I started my next job on July 25th but I did not count its hours for this week as I already had exceeded 30 hrs a week and couldn't count more towards the 1560 hours and 52 weeks requirements. Does this sound alright?

 

[Wolfpmd3]

I am asking this question to ensure IRCC calculates the work experience the same way as I do. I know they do not count over 30 hrs a week. I worked at a remote gold mine for 80 hrs from 16 July 2019 to 23 July 2019. This involved two standard weeks (Sunday to Saturday), I worked for 50 hrs in the first week followed by 30 hrs in the second week. I simply counted this as two weeks of full-time work experience towards IRCC's MEC of 52 weeks for CEC. The question here is if IRCC calculates weeks based on calendar days or the definition of a week in Canada (Sunday to Saturday)? If you look at my case, I worked only for 8 calendar days, however, they are two standard weeks. How does IRCC interpret this?

It doesn't really matter.. a week is 7 days. So if you started working on a Tuesday you would count one week between Tuesday and Monday. If you started working on a Thursday, your week would run between Thursday and Wednesday. And so on.

Regardless, a week (As always) has 5 business days and 2 weekend days --> so your 30 hours could be distributed over 5 days, or 2 days or 7 days. It is not really relevant.

In your case, between July 16 and July 23 2019, there are only 8 days, meaning 1 week and 1 day. So from 16 to the 22 there are seven days) 1 week. You should only cunt 30 hours these days + the hours you worked on the 23rd.

Alternatively you could count the days corresponding to each calendar week, however this is not realistic because you actually worked for 1 week and 1 day.

IRCC does not mention anything about calendar weeks, so I would say that logically you start counting the day when you started to work.

 

[indianstudent96]

It doesn't really matter.. a week is 7 days. So if you started working on a Tuesday you would count one week between Tuesday and Monday. If you started working on a Thursday, your week would run between Thursday and Wednesday. And so on.

Regardless, a week (As always) has 5 business days and 2 weekend days --> so your 30 hours could be distributed over 5 days, or 2 days or 7 days. It is not really relevant.

In your case, between July 16 and July 23 2019, there are only 8 days, meaning 1 week and 1 day. So from 16 to the 22 there are seven days) 1 week. You should only cunt 30 hours these days + the hours you worked on the 23rd.

This is different though. This job did not have a 5-day workweek. It was fly-in-fly-out, you work for 8 days and take a break for 8 days; the hours are averaged to 2 weeks as per the agreement. It works out to 40 hrs a week.

 

[Wolfpmd3]

Thanks, Jes. I meant the difference between July 23, 2019, and July 16, 2019, is literally 7 days. Would it cause any confusion? It was also a fly-in-fly-out opportunity, so I worked 10 hours every day. Both July 16th and July 23rd were Tuesdays in 2019. I counted the hours like this:

Week 1 - July 16 (Tuesday) to July 20 (Saturday) - 50 hours
Week 2 - July 21 (Sunday) to July 23 (Tuesday) - 30 hours

This is reflected in my weekly pay stubs too. I started my next job on July 25th but I did not count its hours for this week as I already had exceeded 30 hrs a week and couldn't count more towards the 1560 hours and 52 weeks requirements. Does this sound alright?

In this case you have additional hours from your next job, so this should not be an issue at all.

Honestly, if you are still working you shouldn't make a big deal out of this and why don't just apply once you've completed 1 year in the next job? The 2 weeks you are saving by adding the other experience seems to be making things a bit more complicated that they need to be. Why not just give the officer a single work experience to deal with and add a second one this only gives you 1-2 weeks of additional experience.

Honestly, this would only be worth doing if you were struggling to meet the MEC for CEC and are no longer working, but if you have a job and are still adding hours, just give it another 1-2 weeks and submit the latest experience only, this might save you time down the road.

This is different though. This job did not have a 5-day workweek. It was fly-in-fly-out, you work for 8 days and take a break for 8 days; the hours are averaged to 2 weeks as per the agreement. It works out to 40 hrs a week.

in this case you it would depend on how you get your paystubs, if they are biweekly then yes, you could average them to 40 h per week... but as I said you might as well just omit this experience and just go with the latest one when you complete 1 year.

 

[indianstudent96]

In this case you have additional hours from your next job, so this should not be an issue at all.

Honestly, if you are still working you shouldn't make a big deal out of this and why don't just apply once you've completed 1 year in the next job? The 2 weeks you are saving by adding the other experience seems to be making things a bit more complicated that they need to be. Why not just give the officer a single work experience to deal with and add a second one this only gives you 1-2 weeks of additional experience.

Honestly, this would only be worth doing if you were struggling to meet the MEC for CEC and are no longer working, but if you have a job and are still adding hours, just give it another 1-2 weeks and submit the latest experience only, this might save you time down the road.

That's what I am doing already. I have had 4 jobs over the last year.

My first job was from May 6, 2019 to June 14, 2019 - 6 weeks (full-time)

Second job (this one) was from July 16, 2019 to July 23, 2019 - 2 weeks (full-time)

The third job was from July 25, 2019 to December 06, 2019 - 19 weeks + 15 hrs from the week of July 21st, 2019 (full-time)

I started my current job from December 10, 2019 - 26 weeks by 6th June.

I am expecting an ITA this week. Adding these figures, it comes to 53 weeks. If I were to go by your definition of a week, I would lose a week from 1st and 2nd job as I left those jobs on the weekends. I always thought it boiled down to a conventional week (Sunday to Saturday) in a calendar year. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Wolfpmd3]

That's what I am doing already. I have had 4 jobs over the last year.

My first job was from May 6, 2019 to June 14, 2019 - 6 weeks (full-time)

Second job (this one) was from July 16, 2019 to July 23, 2019 - 2 weeks (full-time)

The third job was from July 25, 2019 to December 06, 2019 - 19 weeks + 15 hrs from the week of July 21st, 2019 (full-time)

I started my current job from December 10, 2019 - 26 weeks by 6th June.

I am expecting an ITA this week. Adding these figures, it comes to 53 weeks. If I were to go by your definition of a week, I would lose a week from 1st and 2nd job as I left those jobs on the weekends. I always thought it boiled down to a conventional week (Sunday to Saturday) in a calendar year. Correct me if I am wrong.

I am honestly not sure. All IRCC says is per week. TO me it makes sense to start counting the ween the day you starting working, however your approach makes sense too.

If you get biweekly paystubs this should not be an issue though.

 

[indianstudent96]

I am honestly not sure. All IRCC says is per week. TO me it makes sense to start counting the ween the day you starting working, however your approach makes sense too.

If you get biweekly paystubs this should not be an issue though.

It's ambiguous. All my paystubs were biweekly except for my second job. My pay stubs were weekly for the second job. So, I can show them I worked for 50 hrs in the first week followed by 30 hrs in the second week. I am thinking of putting a table on my letter of explanation to make it easier for the reviewing case agent/analyst/officer. I do not think it goes against anything IRCC has put on its requirements section. The only reason why they do not count over 30 hours a week is that they do not want people applying for permanent residency within a year (52 weeks) from the date that they first started working. In my case, I started working on May 6, 2019, and then went unemployed for 4 weeks between the first and second jobs. Other than that, all the weeks that I have worked so far has been more than 30 hrs.

If I had stayed in my first job, I would have fulfilled this criteria on May 4, 2020. Simply adding my 4-week unemployment period to this date brings it to June 1, 2020. As long as I get an ITA after June 1, 2020, it shouldn't be an issue as per IRCC's requirements (not counting over 30 hrs a week). I can only wish I was not let go from my first job just so that it doesn't make my PR application complicated. I can't change the past though. Thanks!