Canada has the world's deepest explicit job-evaluation regime: the four compensable factors — skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions — appear verbatim in the federal Pay Equity Act and every provincial pay-equity statute. The federal Act, Quebec and Ontario cover private as well as public employers; Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland & Labrador cover the public sector.
Canada operates the deepest set of explicit job-evaluation mandates in the world. The four classic compensable factors — skill, effort, responsibility, and the conditions under which work is performed — appear verbatim in every federal and provincial pay equity statute. No other country writes the factors so directly into law.
The federal Pay Equity Act (S.C. 2018, c. 27, in force 31 August 2021) requires federally regulated employers with 10 or more employees to establish a proactive pay equity plan: identify job classes, determine which are predominantly female or male, value the work of each class, and raise pay where female-predominant classes are underpaid. Section 42 fixes the valuation criterion as "the composite of the skill required ..., the effort required ..., the responsibility required ... and the conditions under which the work is performed" — and section 43 requires the method to be gender-neutral and capable of comparing the relative value of different work.
The statutes mandate the factors and gender-neutrality; the specific scoring design is left to the employer or a joint pay equity committee. In other words, Canadian law assumes you will run analytical job evaluation — it just doesn't pick your point system for you.
Three regimes bind private as well as public employers:
Five further provinces — Manitoba (Canada's first proactive pay equity statute, 1985), New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador (Pay Equity and Pay Transparency Act, pay equity provisions in force 1 April 2023) — mandate the same four-factor evaluation for the public sector. British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan have pay transparency laws but no factor-based pay equity mandate.
The federal Act's first big milestone has passed: covered employers had until 3 September 2024 to post their final pay equity plans, with the Pay Equity Commissioner granting extensions (commonly to early 2025) on application. Compliance is now in the maintenance phase — annual statements to the Pay Equity Commissioner each June 30, and full plan revisions at least every five years. Quebec and Ontario have run mature audit-and-maintenance regimes for decades, backed by their respective pay equity commissions, and Ontario's Pay Equity Office publishes extensive methodology guidance.
Canadian pay equity compliance is, mechanically, a job evaluation exercise. Every covered employer must produce:
A point-factor system maps one-to-one onto these duties: factors and levels aligned to the statutory composite, scores that produce an explicit relative ranking of job classes, and documentation that survives committee scrutiny and Commissioner review. For employers covered in multiple provinces — or facing the federal Act and Quebec and Ontario simultaneously — a single consistent methodology, applied per jurisdiction's rules, is the difference between one pay equity program and three.
Yes, in the jurisdictions that matter most. The federal Pay Equity Act, Quebec's Pay Equity Act, and Ontario's Pay Equity Act all require employers with 10 or more employees — private as well as public — to value jobs using a gender-neutral method built on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. Five more provinces mandate the same four-factor evaluation for the public sector.
Skill, effort, responsibility, and the conditions under which the work is performed. Canada is unique in writing these four factors verbatim into every federal and provincial pay equity statute — federal s.42 defines job value as "the composite" of exactly those four.
Federally regulated employers with 10+ employees (banks, telecoms, transport, federal public service) under the federal Act, and all employers with 10+ employees in Quebec and Ontario under their provincial Acts. Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland & Labrador impose comparable duties on public-sector employers.
The Act came into force on 31 August 2021 and gave covered employers three years — to 3 September 2024 — to post a final pay equity plan, with extensions granted by the Pay Equity Commissioner in some cases. Employers must then file annual statements each June 30 and revise their plans at least every five years.
PointFactors implements the analytical, factor-based methodology referenced by pay equity laws worldwide.
Book a DemoInformational summary of legal requirements, not legal advice. Verify against primary sources before relying on it.
Last reviewed: 2026-06-11