Ontario's 2026 job posting rules: what staffing agencies must change by January 1

What changed in Ontario job postings on January 1, 2026?

The Employment Standards Act, 2000 now has a new part covering publicly advertised job postings. It was added by the Working for Workers Four Act, 2024 (Bill 149), which received Royal Assent on March 21, 2024, and the operating detail, thresholds, and exemptions sit in a companion regulation, Ontario Regulation 476/24. Every piece of this package, the pay disclosure, the AI disclosure, the vacancy statement, the Canadian experience ban, the interview notice, and the record retention rule, came into force together on January 1, 2026.

Does the 25-employee threshold catch your agency?

The rules only apply to employers with 25 or more employees in Ontario on the day a posting goes up. Part-time and casual staff each count as one employee no matter how many hours they work, and the count adds up across every location you run in Ontario. If you employ people on assignment for client sites, those workers are legally your employees, and they count toward your own total, not your client's.

That is the detail worth sitting with. A five-person back office running 60 warehouse workers on assignment is a 65-employee employer for this purpose, squarely covered, even though every individual client site it staffs might be well under 25. Most agencies with any real book of business clear the threshold through assignment staff alone, before anyone counts a single person at head office.

Which of your postings actually need this?

The rules only reach a publicly advertised job posting: an external ad for a specific position, advertised to the public in any way, whether that is a job board, your own website, or social media. Ontario's guidance lists postings that sit outside the definition: a general recruitment campaign that names no specific position, a plain help-wanted sign with no specific position, a posting open only to your existing staff, and a role performed mostly outside Ontario. If your agency runs open-ended, always-hiring campaigns alongside role-specific ads, check which bucket each one falls into, since the line between them is not always obvious and is worth a proper legal read for a borderline case.

The four things every covered posting must say

Four separate disclosures apply to a covered posting. Miss one and the posting itself is out of compliance, independent of who you end up hiring.

Can you still ask about a licence or the right to work?

Yes. The ban is on requiring Canadian experience as your own hiring criterion, whether in the posting itself or in the application form attached to it. It does not stop you from confirming that an applicant holds a professional licence, trade certification, or registration genuinely needed for the job, even where getting that credential happened to involve Canadian experience. It also does not stop you from confirming an applicant has the legal right to work in Ontario.

What counts as using artificial intelligence to screen applicants?

Ontario's definition is broad on purpose: a machine-based system that, for an explicit or implicit goal, infers from the input it is given to produce a prediction, recommendation, piece of content, or decision. There is no minimum sophistication threshold and no prescribed wording for the disclosure itself, just the requirement to say it plainly if it applies. If any tool in your hiring flow ranks, scores, shortlists, or filters applicants without a person making that call directly, get a straight legal read on whether it needs disclosing before your next posting goes up.

What do you owe an applicant after the interview?

You must tell an interviewed applicant, within 45 days after the interview (or the last interview, if there was more than one), whether a hiring decision has been made. You can do this in person, in writing, or using technology such as email or a portal message. The Act does not require you to explain the decision, only to say whether one was made.

What records do you have to keep, and for how long?

Every covered posting, and everything tied to it, has to be kept for three years after it stops being publicly accessible. This is where a staffing agency feels the rule differently than a single employer filling one office role a year. A single employer posts a role once and files it away. An agency reposting the same warehouse shift forty times a year is generating forty separate three-year files, not one.

• A copy of the posting text itself, including any linked page it pointed to.
• Every revised version of the posting, if you edited the pay, the wording, or anything else after it first went up.
• A copy of the associated application form.
• A record of the 45-day interview-outcome notice, kept for three years from when you sent it, not from when the posting came down.

What happens if you do not comply?

Ontario enforces this through the same employment standards officers who enforce the rest of the Act: they can issue compliance orders and notices of contravention, and prosecution is available under the Act's general offence provision. That general provision, not a job-posting-specific fine schedule, is what would apply on prosecution: a fine of not more than $50,000 or imprisonment of not more than 12 months, or both, for an individual, and not more than $100,000 for a corporation's first conviction, $250,000 for a second, and $500,000 for a third or later one. Some legal commentary also notes that an individual worker cannot bring a personal Employment Standards complaint specifically over these posting requirements; enforcement runs through the ministry's own inspection and compliance process rather than a worker filing a claim over an ad.

Five things to check before your next posting goes live

1. Confirm your total Ontario headcount, including everyone currently on assignment. If it is 25 or more, every rule in this guide applies to you.
2. Add the pay, or a range no wider than $50,000 a year, to the ad text itself, not just the internal job order.
3. Decide honestly whether the ad is for a role that is open right now, or a bench-building post for future shifts, and say which.
4. Check every screening or ranking tool in your hiring flow and get a straight answer on whether it counts as artificial intelligence under this rule.
5. Set a reminder for the 45-day interview-outcome notice, and for keeping the posting on file for three years after it comes down.