Tools · Ontario
Overtime follows the hour, not the week.
When somebody works two jobs at two rates, Ontario pays each overtime hour at one and a half times the rate for the work done in that hour. Averaging the week is the American rule, and it gives a different answer.
The week, in order
Enter the shifts in the order they were worked. Hours past 44 in the week are the overtime ones.
What is owed
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Why this is not pedantry
The same week, two answers, and only one of them is lawful.
It cuts both ways. If the high-rate work happened early in the week, blending overpays instead. Neither direction is a defence.
Ontario's rule is that the overtime rate for each hour is based on the regular rate that applies to the work performed in that hour. The province's own example: two overtime hours on a punch press at $20 are paid at $30, and two more as a shipping coordinator at $25 are paid at $37.50.
Under the American Fair Labor Standards Act you would instead compute a weighted average for the week and pay a half-time premium on it. That is the model baked into most payroll engines, because most payroll engines were built for the United States — and it is the single most common way a Canadian temp week gets paid wrong.
The threshold is 44 hours in the work week, not eight in a day. The overtime guide →
Questions
The ones this raises.
Which hours count as the overtime ones?
The hours past 44 in the work week, in the order they were worked. That is why this tool asks for the shifts in sequence rather than as a set of totals — the order decides which rate the overtime attaches to, and therefore what is owed.
What if the employee worked for two different clients?
It makes no difference to the calculation. The agency is the employer, so the week is one week regardless of how many client sites it was spread across, and hours past the threshold are overtime even though no single client saw a long week.
It makes a great deal of difference to billing, which is a separate problem: you owe the overtime, and whether you can bill it depends on what you agreed with each client.
Can we average hours over two weeks?
Only under an averaging agreement that meets the Act's requirements. This tool does not model one — it calculates a single work week, which is the default position.
Does Zawrix do this correctly?
Yes, and it is why pay rates attach to the assignment rather than to the person. One worker can carry several rates in a week, and the hours know which rate they were worked at, which is the only arrangement that can produce this answer.
A week like this, every week.
Bring one that went wrong and we will run it through the product.