An employer’s compliance deadline depends on whether the establishment is in the public or private sector, when it came into existence and the number of employees it had on January 1, 1988 (when the Act became effective) or July 1, 1993 (when the Act was amended).

1. Deadlines for employers not subject to Part II requirements

• All new public sector employers that started their organization after January 1, 1988, must achieve pay equity immediately upon start-up.
  • Please note this does not apply to those public sector employers who are covered by the proxy provisions of the Pay Equity Act (Part III.2). (See Proxy Comparison Method).
• All private sector employers with fewer than 10 employees in existence on January 1, 1988 and all new private sector employers that started business after January 1, 1988, must achieve pay equity on the day they hire or hired their tenth employee (Table 1).
• Smaller private sector employers who had between 10 and 99 employees on January 1, 1988, and who chose not to post a pay equity plan by December 31, 1993, must achieve pay equity according to deadlines that depend on their size and method of implementing pay equity (Table 2).

Table 2: Achievement dates for smaller private sector employers who were NOT required and chose NOT to post pay equity plans

iii. Deadlines for Part II Employers

For private sector employers that had employees on January 1, 1988 and public sector employers with employees on either January 1, 1988 or July 1, 1993, the deadlines for complying with Part II requirements for posting pay equity plans and making adjustments are based on how many employees the private sector employer had, whether the private sector employer chose to post a plan by December 31, 1993, and the comparison method used by either a private or public sector employer to achieve pay equity (Tables 3 and 4).

Table 3: Deadlines for posting pay equity plans and first adjustment dates for public sector employers

NOTE: The achievement date for public sector employers in Table 3 is January 1, 1998.

Table 4: Deadlines for posting pay equity plans and first adjustment dates for private sector employers

NOTE: There is no achievement date for private sector employers in Table 4. They are all required to spend at least 1 per cent of previous year’s payroll on pay equity adjustments until pay equity is achieved.