MINIMUM WAGE
Hello, and welcome to MOL Radio.
In Ontario, the Employment Standards Act sets minimum employment standards for most Ontario workplaces.
One of these standards is the minimum wage.
The minimum wage is generally the lowest wage rate an employer can pay an employee.
Most employees are eligible for minimum wage, whether they are full-time, part-time, casual employees, or are paid an hourly rate, commission, piece rate, flat rate or salary.
There are some special exceptions where the minimum wage does not apply. Please check our website for more information.
At this time, the general minimum wage is $10.25 per hour.
This rate applies to most employees.
However, there are exceptions.
There's a student minimum wage of $9.60 per hour.
This rate applies to students under the age of 18
It applies if the student works 28 hours a week or less when school is in session.
If the student is employed during a school holiday, it applies regardless of the number of hours of work in a week.
Since tips make up a significant portion of liquor servers' income, there is also a liquor servers minimum wage of $8.25 per hour.
This rate applies to employees who serve liquor directly, to customers or guests, in licensed premises, as a regular part of their work.
"Licensed premises" are businesses for which a license or permit has been issued under the Liquor Licence Act.
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There is also a special minimum wage rate for homeworkers.
Under the Employment Standards Act, homeworkers are employees who do paid work in their own homes.
For example, you are considered to be a homeworker if you sew clothes for a clothing manufacturer, answer telephone calls for a call centre, or write software for a high-tech company.
It is important to note that students of any age who are employed as homeworkers … and this includes students under the age of 18 years … they must be paid the homeworker's minimum wage.
At present, the homeworkers minimum wage is $11.28 per hour … 110 per cent of the general minimum wage.
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If all or part of your income is in the form of a commission, you must be paid at least the minimum wage for the hours you've worked, even if your commissions don't add up to that amount.
In addition, there are special minimum wage rates for hunting and fishing guides.
And, there are special rules if your employer also provides you with room and board.
Please check our website at Ontario.ca - forward slash - employment standards - that's one word, for details on these exceptions.
That's Ontario.ca - forward slash - employment standards.
Or, you may call our Information Centre at 1-800-531-5551. That's 1-800-531-5551.
That's it for this segment of MOL Radio … Thank you for listening.