What Ontario Job Postings Frankly Must Disclose Under the New 2026 Rules
Reading an Ontario job ad in 2026 is a slightly different exercise than it was a year ago. Here’s exactly what ontario job postings must disclose 2026 onward, item by item, so you know what you’re entitled to see and what you’re not.
The checklist
1. Does the employer even meet the size threshold? These rules only bind employers with 25 or more employees, counted on the day the posting goes up. Part-time and casual staff each count as one employee regardless of hours, and staff across multiple Ontario locations are counted together. The Crown and Crown agencies are excluded entirely.
2. Is a compensation figure or range shown? The ontario job posting salary range requirement means the ad must state expected compensation, or a range of it. Where a range is given, it can’t spread more than $50,000 a year — but the whole requirement disappears once expected compensation hits $200,000 a year or more. Employers may describe how pay is earned (bonuses, commission structure) alongside the base figure.
3. Is there any hidden Canadian-experience requirement? The posting and any application form must not require Canadian work experience, Canadian education credentials, or an established Canadian professional network or client base — unless the role genuinely requires professional licensing or registration, which is carved out.
4. Does it disclose AI screening? If the employer uses artificial intelligence to screen, assess or select applicants, the posting has to say so. A simple statement is enough — no technical explanation required — but its absence, where AI genuinely is used, is itself a red flag.
5. Does it state whether the vacancy is real? This is the ontario existing vacancy disclosure rule, and it’s the item most people miss. Every posting must say whether it’s for an existing vacancy — defined as a position “imminently available for a qualified candidate to fill” — or not. The rule doesn’t ban ghost jobs outright; it just makes employers label them. Read this line before you invest hours tailoring an application.
6. What happens after your interview? Under the ontario 45 day hiring decision notice rule, an employer must tell an interviewed candidate whether a hiring decision has been made — not necessarily the outcome itself — within 45 days of the interview, or the last interview if there were several. If interviews were spaced more than 45 days apart, a fresh notification is owed after each one.
7. Is the paper trail supposed to still exist later? Postings, application forms and post-interview notifications must all be retained by the employer for three years — useful to know if a dispute ever arises well after the fact.
8. Where you found the ad matters too. Job-posting platforms themselves — not just employers — must provide a visible way to report fraudulent postings and publish a policy on handling them, regardless of the employer’s size. For South Africans wary of “Canada visa sponsorship” scam listings, this is a legitimate, if imperfect, safeguard worth using.
What to do if a posting fails this checklist
A posting missing one of these eight items isn’t necessarily fraudulent, but it is worth flagging — either to the platform’s own reporting tool, or, if you believe the employer is knowingly non-compliant, to an employment lawyer who can advise on the specific posting. This checklist tells you what ontario job postings must disclose 2026 onward in general; it can’t tell you what to do about one specific ad that isn’t following it.