What to do when I have to close my daycare early for maternity leave??

[Lee-Bee]

I'll start off by saying I have no idea how the EI works for daycare providers but have you looked into the details to see if you are eligible for it if you stop work 2 months before you are eligible?

My understanding (based on when I used Mat leave with my daughter through EI - pre daycare running days) is that the income you receive during mat leave is largely related to your income in the weeks prior to starting mat leave. While you calculate all your earnings through the full period before, the income immediately before is largely what decides your EI money.

Hopefully some others ladies on here have more direct knowledge I just caution that if you haven't received solid info on this you might want to get it figured out before ending the daycare and finding out in June that you are no longer eligible.

Hopefully it all works out for you. The system isn't designed to make it easy to receive EI, I have the feeling that you had to be working fulltime through the FULL 1yr period in order to receive benefits...not that you just had to wait 1yr to receive the benefits :-(

[LizzyGrant]

Thanks for your responses! EI is calculated based on the last 52 weeks of work, so not just the income immediately before, as long as you've worked 600 hours, you are eligible. And of course, that you've paid into EI. I have researched the heck out of this, so I do know what my situation is and it's not too bad. But I just am concerned about the 2 months of income I am losing and can't collect EI during.