The death of the salary guessing game: Ontario’s transparency era begins

David King, senior managing director at Robert Half, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the impact of pay transparency on employee salaries.

Job postings in Ontario are now required to disclose pay ranges, ending the practice of asking applicants to apply before knowing what a position pays.

As part of the Working for Workers Act, which took effect on Jan. 1, companies with at least 25 employees will now have to advertise the salary or hourly wage bracket attached to the job postings they list online. Whatever salary range they post in the job ad cannot exceed $50,000, meaning that employers won’t be able to skirt the rule by posting broad salary ranges.

“We are proud to lead the way in establishing the first comprehensive framework in Canada for pre-employment that will support workers throughout the hiring process,” Labour Minister David Piccini said in a statement to CTV News Toronto.

“Anyone looking for work deserves to know three things up front: what the job pays, whether the job is real, and how your application is being judged. This is about putting time, money and power back in the hands of job seekers, instead of leaving them guessing or wasting their energy on dead-ends.”

The new legislation brings Ontario in line with a number of other provinces that have enacted similar rules, including British Columbia and Prince Edward Island.

Under the new legislation in Ontario, employers also cannot stipulate that they require previous Canadian experience.

Outside of that, organizations will be required to disclose the amount of artificial intelligence they use throughout the hiring process.

Louisa Benedicto, senior vice president of HR recruitment at recruit agency Hays, said that means any use of AI throughout the recruitment process—from writing the job posting to screening resumes, the latter of which she says companies are “hopefully” not doing.

Based on the latest data from Statistics Canada, published in September, 12.2 per cent of businesses across the country reported using AI in the second quarter of the year to either deliver services or produce goods over the last 12 months, which is up from roughly six per cent in the same period in 2024.

So, how could this change the application process for job seekers?

For one, the awkward song and dance negotiating a position’s salary will likely be put to rest, experts say.

“I think it’s going to make the job search for a candidate more of an equitable process, like you will get paid what your skills and your experience are worth, rather than you’ll get paid based on how well you negotiate,” Benedicto said.

It will also save time in general since all the details about the job will be listed up front. Based on Hays’ salary and hiring trends guide for Canada next year, 90.5 per cent of job seekers want to see salaries listed in public postings.

“Now what’s going to happen is employers have to say, ‘To do this job, you must have these skills, and I will pay you this amount of money to do it,’” Benedicto said. “It’s just a different way of looking at how you get a compensation for a new role.”

Listing the salary up front will also likely help with any disparity in pay for marginalized groups who tend to get paid less. Statistics Canada’s latest data reveals that in 2024, working women between the ages of 25 and 54 earned 87 cents for every dollar earned by a man—that gap was even higher for Black, Indigenous and women of colour.

“I think what it does is it creates an environment of accountability

,” Deb Bottineau, managing director with recruitment agency Robert Half, said in an interview with CTV News Toronto.

“It creates this pay equity scenario where there’s no sort of hidden secret around compensation, and so it’s public … I think that the net outcome of that will be a more equitable playing field for everyone.”

Another component to the new legislation is that companies have to respond to a candidate they have interviewed within 45 days of the last interview.

“(This) will also help with them being ‘not ghosted’ after the interview/application closes,” Parbudyal Singh, professor of human resource management at York University, said in an email.

Benedicto says this will also help companies’ reputations, as an unsuccessful candidate now could become an attractive hire down the road.

“If they got ghosted or had a poor experience in the recruitment process last time, they’re less likely to come back to you and they’re more likely to tell other people about it as well,” Benedicto said. “I think that little bit is a real plus as well, for employer value proposition and branding.”

How this could change the hiring process for employers

Every job has to have a defined salary band with skills and experience attached, which is something companies will have to clearly define internally.

“In order to be transparent, you’ve got to have really clear bands,” Benedicto said. “If you don’t already have that, then they’re going to need to invest time in building that.”

Singh says this will lead to a carefully developed and structured compensation system within companies.

• READ MORE: Should you know how much your co-workers earn?

Once this is defined, it serves as a tool for candidates—and current employees—to understand what pay band they fall under based on the expected skills they should have in order to get paid that much. Though Benedicto says this can get tricky if an employee is getting underpaid or overpaid for what they do.

“Before you start advertising for a new job where you have other people already doing the same work, you have to be clear that you have got everyone in the right spot,” Benedicto said.

Benedicto says this does not mean, however, that organizations need to publish what all staff are earning.