A new regulation created under the Pay Transparency Act (“PTA”), the Pay Transparency Regulation (“PTR”), was recently brought into force on October 23, 2023. The PTR provides guidance about the information to be collected by employers and included in pay transparency reports – a new requirement created pursuant to the PTA.
Although the requirement to prepare pay transparency reports is being rolled out over a period of several years, starting with specific Crown corporations in November 2023, BC employers will need to be familiar with these regulations to ensure they understand these requirements and are ready to collect and report in accordance with the legislative requirements.
The PTR generally addresses the content of pay transparency reports, and includes the following:
- Clarification of the applicable time periods – A pay transparency report must cover one of the following two time periods – either the most recently completed financial year or the calendar year preceding the year the pay transparency report is prepared.
- Clarification about the collection of gender category information – The gender categories are defined within the PTR as man, woman, non-binary or unknown (for persons who do identify as man, woman or non-binary, those who do not wish to specify and for those employees for which the employer does not have gender category information).
- Clarification about the information to be included in pay transparency reports – This includes the employer’s name, their mailing address, applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Canada sector codes, dates of the reporting period, the number of employees expressed in a specific range, the applicable gender categories, the percentage of employees in each gender category who received overtime pay and bonus pay, the difference between the mean and median hourly rate of employees in each gender category, the difference between the mean and median amount of overtime pay of employees in each gender category, the difference between the mean and median number of overtime hours of employees in each gender category, and the difference between the mean and median amount of bonus pay of employees in each gender category.
- Calculation guidance – The PTR contains a detailed explanation about how to calculate various required information, including for example the mean and median hourly rates, overtime and bonus figures as between gender categories.
For more information about the PTA requirements, please also see our prior article on the PTA, and our article on related guidance on job postings. If you have questions regarding this article, the Pay Transparency Act, or the Pay Transparency Regulation please contact your Harris lawyer.
