Ontario Bill 149 Is Live - Is Your ATS Actually Compliant?

Ontario's job posting rules under Bill 149 took effect January 1, 2026. Three months in, most employers with 25 or more employees are still posting jobs the same way they always have - with no AI disclosure, no salary range, and no vacancy statement. The law doesn't care about the learning curve.

Who must comply

If you employ 25 or more people and post publicly advertised job openings, you are covered. That threshold is assessed on the day each posting goes live - not annually, not at the start of the year. Post a job on a day when your headcount is 25 and you're covered for that posting.

"Publicly advertised" means anything visible to the general public: job boards, your careers page, LinkedIn, X, WhatsApp channels, anything. Internal-only postings are exempt. Postings for roles where all work happens outside Ontario are also exempt.

The five requirements, plainly stated

These requirements come from multiple acts - Bill 149 (Working for Workers Four), Bill 190 (Working for Workers Five), and associated regulations. They all land in the same place: your job postings.

1. AI disclosure

If you use any AI tool to screen, assess, or select applicants, you must say so in the posting and on any associated application form. The ESA defines AI broadly as any machine-based system that infers from inputs to generate outputs like predictions, recommendations, or decisions.

That definition catches more than most employers expect. Resume parsers that rank candidates, ATS features that auto-filter by criteria, video interview scoring, predictive analytics - all of it likely requires disclosure.

You do not need to name the vendor or explain how the system works. A simple statement in the posting is sufficient:

"This position uses AI-enabled tools to assist in screening and assessing applicants."

The risk calculus is asymmetric. Over-disclosing when you don't need to carries essentially no risk. Under-disclosing when you do need to is a violation.

2. Compensation disclosure

Every posting must include expected compensation or a salary range. The range cannot span more than $50,000 - so "$60,000 - $100,000" is fine, but "$60,000 - $120,000" is not.

Roles where compensation exceeds $200,000 annually are exempt from this requirement. Tips, discretionary bonuses, travel allowances, and employer benefit contributions are excluded from the compensation definition.

3. Vacancy disclosure

The posting must state whether it is for an existing vacancy or for building a candidate pipeline for future openings. This was added to address the practice of "ghost postings" - jobs with no actual opening that companies post to collect resumes or appear to be growing.

Two acceptable statements:

• "This posting is for an existing vacancy."
• "This posting is to build a pool of candidates for future openings. There is no current vacancy."

4. No Canadian experience requirements

Postings and application forms cannot require "Canadian experience" or any equivalent phrasing. This supports internationally trained professionals. The prohibition is in the posting text itself and in any application form fields or instructions.

5. Post-interview candidate notification

Candidates who were interviewed must receive notification of whether a hiring decision has been made within 45 days of their interview (or their last interview if there were multiple rounds).

The definition of "interview" here matters: it is a technology-enabled or in-person meeting where questions are asked to assess suitability. Basic phone screens that only verify minimum information do not qualify. A substantive voice screening or video interview does.

The remote work jurisdiction trap

Here is where many Canadian employers are getting caught without realizing it. British Columbia has its own Pay Transparency Act, which requires salary or wage range disclosure in all publicly advertised job postings - with no employee count threshold. It applies to every BC employer, regardless of size.

The trap: if you post a remote role that is open to candidates anywhere in Canada, that posting likely reaches BC residents and is arguably subject to BC's law. Employment lawyers are advising clients that national remote postings should include salary ranges regardless of where the employer is headquartered.

Ontario and BC are not the only jurisdictions moving on this. PEI passed the Pay Equity Act. Nova Scotia has pay equity legislation. The direction across Canada is clear - plan for salary transparency in all postings, not just Ontario ones.

The AI in your ATS you probably don't know about

This is the part that catches employers who think they're compliant because they don't use "AI tools." The problem is that AI is now embedded in legacy ATS platforms as standard features - often quietly, without prominent documentation.

Consider some well-known examples:

• Workday HiredScore - Workday acquired HiredScore in 2024. HiredScore uses AI to score and rank candidates. If your organization uses Workday and has this feature active (or has not explicitly disabled it), you are using AI to assess applicants.
• Oracle Taleo "Suggested Candidates" - Taleo's suggested candidate and ranking features use algorithmic matching to surface and order applicants. These features are often on by default.
• Greenhouse AI features - Greenhouse has introduced AI-assisted candidate scoring and review tools. The feature set expands with each release.
• Resume parsers everywhere - Nearly every ATS includes resume parsing that does more than extract text. Parsers that rank, match, or score candidates against criteria are likely caught by the Ontario definition.

The compliance obligation is on the employer, not the ATS vendor. Your vendor's terms of service do not protect you from an Employment Standards Officer finding an undisclosed AI process in your hiring stack.

What to do right now

If your job postings are live and do not include these elements, you are already in violation for those postings. Here is the remediation sequence:

How WorkSignal handles this

WorkSignal uses AI voice screening to interview candidates - which means every WorkSignal customer using voice screening is using AI to assess applicants. We take that compliance obligation seriously and have built it into the platform.

Here is what WorkSignal does automatically:

• Compliant AI disclosure language - WorkSignal generates disclosure text for job postings that reflects the actual AI processes being used. You do not have to write it yourself or remember to include it.
• 45-day notification tracking - The platform tracks interviewed candidates and flags approaching notification deadlines. Your team gets prompted before the window closes, not after.
• Audit logs - WorkSignal maintains detailed records of screening activity, candidate interactions, and notifications. These records are accessible and exportable for compliance review.
• Transparent AI - Unlike embedded ATS features that obscure what they do, WorkSignal is explicit about its AI screening process. Candidates know they are speaking with an AI interviewer before the call begins.

We are not a legal compliance tool and this is not legal advice. But we do build compliance requirements into the product so they are not an afterthought. If you are evaluating hiring platforms, ask every vendor directly how their product handles Bill 149 disclosure requirements. The answer will tell you a lot.