In force · 1 January 2026
Ontario: the disclosure has to be in the job posting
Since January 2026, an Ontario employer with 25 or more employees must say in any publicly advertised job posting whether AI is used to screen, assess or select applicants. It is the only one of these rules that reaches you before you apply.
The ResumeVera team
Checked against the statute and dated. Where a law is not yet in force, or its enforcement is stayed, this page says so rather than describing it as if it applied.
Updated 2026-08-28T06:47:17.551Z
5 min
Section 01
What this page is
This is information for job seekers, not legal advice, and it is current as at August 2026. This area moves quickly, so check the primary source linked at the end before relying on any of it for a decision that matters.
Section 02
What the law covers
Ontario's Employment Standards Act now requires that a publicly advertised job posting disclose whether artificial intelligence is used to screen, assess or select applicants. It applies to employers with 25 or more employees on the day the posting is published.
Section 03
Why this one is the most useful
Every other rule in this area tells you something after you have already applied, or requires you to ask. This one puts the answer in the advertisement, before you spend an hour on an application.
So on an Ontario posting from an employer of that size, the absence of a disclosure is itself information.
Section 04
The limits
Employers below 25 employees are outside it. It applies to publicly advertised postings, so a role filled through a recruiter or an internal referral is a different situation. And disclosure is all it requires: an employer that says it uses AI to screen applicants has complied.
Section 05
What to actually do
Read the posting properly, including the part below the responsibilities that most people skip. If it says AI is used to screen applicants, you now know that before deciding how much time to spend.
Pro tips
Do these
Check the date on anything you read about AI hiring law. Several widely cited statutes have been postponed, repealed or replaced.
A disclosure rule tells you what is happening. It does not usually give you a right to a different process.
None of these laws gives you a right to see your own score or ranking.
Knockout questions, not resume parsing, are what genuinely rejects an application automatically.
Asking a recruiter directly costs nothing, and how they answer tells you something either way.
Avoid these
Delete these
Assuming a law described in an article from last year is still in force. Three of the eight jurisdictions we track have moved.
Expecting to be shown your score. No jurisdiction on this page grants that.
Treating a disclosure requirement as a right to a human reviewer. Only New York City comes close, and it is a request rather than a guarantee.
Believing a model deleted your application when a knockout question is the likelier explanation.
Rewriting a resume for software rather than for a reader. The changes that help a parser help a person too.
Keywords
Keywords by category
Use these in your resume and profile to improve search visibility.
Core phrases
Put this into a resume
Building and editing are free, and so is your first export.
Check my resume freeQuestions
Frequently asked questions
How this guide is maintained
We review this guide every quarter and after any change to the hiring rules or portal behaviour it describes. It was last reviewed on 2026-08-28T06:47:17.551Z. Figures come from named sources, shown beside the number. Where we are estimating rather than measuring, we say so.
By the numbers
Jan 2026
when the disclosure requirement came into force
Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000
25+
employees, measured on the day the posting goes up, for the rule to apply
Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000
Before
you apply, unlike every other rule here, which reaches you afterwards
Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000
Try it
Check the guide against your own file
Everything above is general. Your resume is not. Paste it in and the checker tells you which of these points your file actually breaks.
Check your resume free
A sample resume in the real checker. The 82 and the sub-scores are what the scorer returns for it.
Sources & further reading
The formatting guidance and figures on this page draw on the following authoritative sources.
- Ontario, job posting requirements under the Employment Standards Act, The province's own guide. In force 1 January 2026 for employers with 25 or more employees.
Is your resume ATS ready?
Run a free ATS score check and get specific improvements in under 30 seconds.