Ontario Written Job Details for New Hires: What to Include

What the Ontario rule requires

The rule sits in the Employment Standards Act, 2000, which the province calls the ESA. It was added by the Working for Workers Five Act, 2024 (Bill 190), and the detailed list is set out in Regulation 477/24 made under the ESA. The ministry's own page, Mandatory information for employees, in the Your guide to the Employment Standards Act series on ontario.ca, states the effective date as July 1, 2025 and gives the list of items. Read that page first, then this guide, because the official wording is the one an employment standards officer will use.

The duty is simple to state. An employer that has 25 or more employees on a new employee's first day must give that person the required information in writing. The information must arrive before the first day of work. If that is not practicable, it must arrive as soon after the first day as is reasonably possible. The employer does not get to choose the format in a way that avoids the writing requirement. A paper letter and a PDF sent by email both work, as long as the employee can keep a copy.

The rule is part of a wider set of onboarding duties. Employers must also give every covered employee a copy of the Employment Standards Poster within 30 days of the person starting. The poster is a separate duty and does not replace the written job details.

How to count your employees

The threshold is measured on one day: the new employee's first day of work. The ontario.ca page says the count is taken on that date. Work through these steps before you send any offer.

1. Confirm that the new hire will work in Ontario. The rule applies to Ontario employment, so an employee who works only in another province falls outside it.
2. Count every person on your Ontario payroll on the start date. That includes full-time, part-time, casual and contract staff on your payroll, according to the guidance published by employment law firms in 2025.
3. Count each person once. Do not convert hours into full-time equivalents. A person who works two shifts a week counts as one employee, the same as a person who works five days.
4. Leave out assignment employees placed by a temporary help agency. They are excluded from this rule, and the agency handles their disclosures.
5. If the total is 25 or more, send the written job details. If the total is 24 or fewer on that date, the rule does not apply to that hire, but a written offer is still good practice.

The counting method differs from another Ontario rule. The ontario.ca page on the written policy on disconnecting from work counts the number of employees on January 1 and also counts individuals rather than full-time equivalents. That is a separate duty with its own date. Do not mix the two dates when you check your headcount.

The six items and where they go in an offer letter

The official list has six items. Most offer letters already contain some of them, so the task is usually to check the letter against the list and fill any gap. The table below shows a typical layout. The section names are suggestions. Use the headings your own template already uses.

Keep the wording general for the location and hours. The law asks for a general description, so a line such as Monday to Friday, day shift, about 35 hours a week is enough for the first weeks. If your schedule changes later, the written job details are a record of what you told the employee on the start date. Keep that record.

A worked example with real numbers

Consider a hypothetical hardware retailer in Mississauga, Ontario. On the day a new cashier starts, the company has 31 people on its Ontario payroll. Twelve of them are part-time. The total is 31, not the number of full-time equivalents, which would be lower. Because 31 is above 25, the rule applies to this hire.

The offer letter for the cashier should contain the following. The legal name is the company's registered name, with its trade name added because the stores trade under a different one. The contact section lists the head office address, the main phone line and the store manager's name and direct line. The work location reads as the Mississauga store, sales floor. The starting wage is $24.00 per hour. The pay period is biweekly, and the pay day is every second Friday. The initial hours read as Monday to Friday, day shift, about 35 hours per week.

The letter is sent by email as a PDF on the Monday before the start date. The employee confirms receipt by reply, and the company saves the email with the PDF in the personnel file. If the company had sent the letter on the morning of the first day instead, it would still meet the rule only if sending it earlier was not practicable. Send it earlier when you can.

The same letter can carry the rest of the employment terms, such as the probation period and the benefit plan. The ESA does not prevent that. It only sets the minimum content, and the letter can say more.

Cases that change the answer

Several situations change how the rule applies, so check each one against the hire.

Contract type. The rule covers new employees, not only full-time permanent staff. A seasonal worker or a casual worker on your payroll counts as a new employee. One employment law firm noted in 2025 that the rule reaches seasonal hires once the employer has 25 or more employees on its payroll.

Temporary help agency assignments. A worker placed with your business by a temporary help agency is an assignment employee. The rule does not apply to that worker, and the agency supplies the disclosures. You still have to count assignment employees only if your own standards require it. For the ESA rule, they are excluded from the 25-employee test.

Minimum service. The rule has no minimum service period. It applies from the first day of work. A person hired for a single shift is a new employee, and the duty applies to that person too.

Exclusions by sector. The ESA does not cover every workplace. The ontario.ca page on who is not covered lists employees in sectors under federal jurisdiction, such as airlines, banks, post offices and inter-provincial railways. Those employers follow federal rules. A small number of training and school work placements are also outside the ESA.

Late delivery. The rule allows delivery after the first day when providing the information before then is not practicable. The official text does not define practicable. Do not rely on this exception for a planned hire. It is meant for the case where the details were not ready, for example when a pay schedule was still being set.

Rehires and hires who decline. The official summary does not address a rehire who returns after a gap, or a candidate who accepts and then withdraws before starting. Check the ministry's guidance or a lawyer before you decide that such a person is or is not a new employee.

Penalties. The HRPA published a guide for employers in May 2025 that lists fines for breaches of this rule. Its figures were $250 for a first offence, $500 for a second and $5,000 for a third. Check the current amounts in the ESA and its regulations before you rely on them.

Common mistakes

The most frequent error is treating the offer letter as optional paperwork. The rule applies whether or not your template has a letter. A verbal offer followed by a start date does not satisfy it.

The second error is counting only full-time staff. Part-time and casual people count, and each one counts as a whole employee. An employer with 24 full-time staff and 3 part-time staff has 27 employees for this rule.

A third mistake is listing the trade name but not the legal name, or the reverse. The rule asks for both where they differ. Check your company register entry and use the exact legal name on the letter.

Fourth, many employers write the wage without the pay period and pay day. Those are separate items. A letter that says the hourly rate is $24.00 but leaves out when the money arrives is incomplete.

Fifth, a generic hours line such as flexible hours can fail the test. The rule asks for a general description of the initial hours. Flexible is too vague to tell the employee what the first weeks will look like. State the usual days and the typical weekly total.

Finally, many businesses send the letter and do not keep proof. Save the sent email, the PDF and the date. Ontario's record keeping rules require you to keep each employee's name, address and starting date, and to keep those records for three years after the person stops working for you, as the ontario.ca record keeping page sets out.

What to check with HR or a lawyer

Check the headcount on the start date against your current payroll, not last month's list. Check that the wage and pay schedule in the letter match the payroll system. Check that the hours line matches the roster you have planned. Check that any temporary help agency worker is correctly marked as an assignment employee.

Ask a lawyer when the hire is a rehire, when the employee is outside Ontario or in a federally regulated business, or when you plan to change the wage or hours after the letter has been sent. Changes that reduce pay, hours or a role need care. The country's notice, consultation and severance rules apply to such changes, and the change should be agreed with the employee or checked with a lawyer first.

Also keep the offer letter aligned with the rest of your policies. The letter should not promise a benefit your plan does not provide, and it should not state a wage that is below the minimum wage in force on the start date. The current minimum wage is set by the ministry and should be checked on ontario.ca before you issue any letter.

How AI workers take the routine HR and payroll work off your staff

Much of this rule is repetitive. Someone has to copy the same six facts from the hiring file into a letter, check the headcount on the start date, send the PDF and file the proof. AI workers can handle those steps. They can read the approved hire record, fill the template, check the count against the payroll list, and draft the email for a person to approve. The person still decides the wage, confirms the schedule and signs the letter. An AI worker cannot tell you whether a rehire counts as new, and it cannot replace a lawyer on a disputed case. Businesses that want to see how this would work for their own records can Book a free automation audit.

This explains the rule in general terms; it is not legal or tax advice for your case.