What overtime pay rules does an Ontario employer have to follow under the Employment Standards Act?

Under Ontario's Employment Standards Act, 2000, most employees are entitled to overtime pay once their hours worked in a week cross the threshold set out in the Act, paid at a premium rate of time and a half their regular rate for each hour beyond that point. This is a default rule that applies unless a specific exemption in the ESA's regulations takes an employee's role out of overtime coverage, or a properly structured averaging agreement changes how the calculation works over multiple weeks.

A common misunderstanding is that paying someone a fixed salary automatically removes overtime obligations — it doesn't. Unless the employee genuinely falls within a recognized exemption, based on the actual duties they perform rather than their job title, a salaried employee is still entitled to overtime pay once they cross the weekly threshold. Employers sometimes assume "salaried" and "exempt" mean the same thing, and that assumption is a frequent source of unpaid-overtime claims.

This applies to employees covered by Ontario's employment standards regime; federally regulated employers, such as banks, airlines, and telecommunications companies, follow overtime rules under the Canada Labour Code instead. If you're unsure whether a role is exempt, get a proper assessment before assuming overtime doesn't apply.