Equi'Vision: An Employment Equity Tool

Descriptions of Terms Used

Term

Description

Employers

Private-sector employers subject to the Employment Equity Act.

Employees

Permanent or temporary employees that must be reported by employers.

Occupational Groups

Employers must report representation and pay gap information for each occupational group in which they have sufficient employees. Under the Employment Equity Regulations, there are 14 Employment Equity Occupational Groups (EEOGs):

• senior managers
• middle and other managers
• professionals
• semi-professionals and technicians
• supervisors
• supervisors — crafts and trades
• administrative and senior clerical personnel
• skilled sales and service personnel
• skilled crafts and trades workers
• clerical personnel
• intermediate sales and service personnel
• semi-skilled manual workers
• other sales and service personnel
• other manual workers

Designated Groups

Women, Indigenous peoples^{Footnote 1}, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities are the designated groups under the Employment Equity Act. Only employees who identify voluntarily to their employers as Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities or members of visible minorities are reported as members of these groups.

Employer Representation

Shown as a percentage, this is the share of designated group members in an employer's workforce or in part of that workforce, by occupational group or employment status.

Sectors

Employers must report representation and pay gap information for each sector in which they have sufficient employees. Reporting is based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), used by North American governments to classify businesses for statistical purposes.

Employer data is then grouped in 4 major sectors:

• banking and financial services (for example, all major Canadian banks)
• communications (for example, radio or television broadcasters; telecommunication services providers)
• transportation (for example, air, rail, bus, water and pipeline transportation industries)
• 'other' (for example, nuclear power generation; metal ore mining; professional, scientific and technical services)

The transportation and 'other' sectors are divided in subsectors.

Transportation:

• air transportation
• ground transportation
• water transportation

'Other':

• production industries
• service industries

Sector Representation

Shown as a percentage, this is the share of designated group members in the workforce of all employers of a sector or subsector taken together, or in part of that workforce, by occupational group or employment status.

Sector Pay Gaps and Proportions

For any sector pay gap or proportion displayed, the data is the median value for this sector or subsector. This means the data represents employers in the middle of the distribution for the sector or subsector.

Locations

Employers must report representation and pay gap information for each geographical area in which they have sufficient employees. In addition to reporting information for Canada, 10 provinces and 3 territories, employers may also have to report information for cities that are identified as Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) by Statistics Canada.

CMAs are adjacent municipalities with a total population of 100,000 or more grouped around a population centre of 50,000 or more, as determined by Statistics Canada for statistical purposes.

Location Representation

Shown as a percentage, this is the share of designated group members in the workforce of all employers taken together within Canada, a province, a territory, or a city (Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)), or in part of that workforce, by occupational group or employment status.

Location Pay Gaps and Proportions

For any location pay gap or proportion displayed, the data is the median value for this location. That means the data represents employers in the middle of the distribution for the location.

Labour Market Availability

Shown as a percentage, this refers to the share of designated group members in the labour market from which the employers could hire, based on Statistics Canada data. Labour market availability rates are displayed for the Canadian workforce as a whole or for part of that workforce, by sector, subsector, province, territory, city (CMA) or occupational group.

Pay Gap

A pay gap is the difference between what two groups typically earn. This difference is shown as the percentage by which one group earns less than the other.

Mean Pay Gaps

Mean pay gaps measure salary differences by comparing average salaries of groups, taking into account both the amounts paid and the number of employees paid in these groups.

Median Pay Gaps

Median pay gaps measure salary differences by comparing salaries of employees in the middle of the salary distribution of their group.

Null, Positive and Negative Pay Gaps

Pay gaps may be null (equal to 0% or $1.00), positive (larger than 0% or smaller than $1.00), or negative (smaller than 0% or larger than $1.00). Null pay gaps reveal that designated group and non-designated group employees receive equal pay. Positive pay gaps reveal that designated group employees receive lower pay than non-designated group employees. Negative pay gaps reveal that designated group employees receive higher pay than non-designated group employees.

Reporting Representation and Pay Gap Information

Private-sector employers subject to the Employment Equity Act report on an annual basis information on the representation of members of the 4 designated groups, as well as on their hourly wage gaps, bonus pay gaps, overtime pay gaps and overtime hours gaps. Representation and pay gap information is reported for the employer's overall workforce, as well as for parts of that workforce by occupational group, employment status, industry, and location.

Private-sector reports are submitted to the Labour Program and the data is then used to update Equi’Vision. Reported data is also consolidated into the Minister’s Employment Equity Act: Annual Report.

Employers who report for the first year do not usually include information on Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities, which needs to be based on self-identification. Their data is excluded from the consolidated data on designated groups published in the Minister’s Employment Equity Act: Annual Report but it is included in Equi’Vision because it is extracted directly from the Workplace Equity Information Management System (WEIMS). This may cause some slight differences in the sector and location data that is published in both places.

Term

Description

Representation

Representation information reported by employers includes the number of employees and designated group members by:

• occupational group
• salary range
• employment status (for example – permanent full-time, permanent part-time and temporary)
• industry
• location
• hires
• promotions, and
• terminations

Equi’Vision displays representation data as percentages and focuses on employer representation, sector representation and location representation, as well as representation by occupational group and employment status.

Hourly wage gaps

An hourly wage represents pay for one hour of work. Calculating hourly wage gaps allows for wage comparison between employees. The hourly wage calculation excludes bonus pay and overtime pay.

Hourly wages are used rather than weekly or annual earnings so that the results reflect salary differences that are not due to different numbers of hours worked.

Bonus pay gap information

Bonus pay gap information reported includes:

• gaps in mean and median annual amounts of bonus pay among employees who received bonus pay during the reporting year, and
• proportions of employees who received bonus pay during the reporting year

Overtime pay and hours gap information

Overtime pay gap information reported includes:

• gaps in mean and median annual amounts of overtime pay among employees who received pay for overtime worked during the reporting year, and
• proportions of employees who received overtime pay during the reporting year

Overtime hours gap information reported includes:

• gaps in the mean and median annual numbers of overtime hours worked among employees who received overtime pay during the reporting year

Pay gap contextual information

This is information provided voluntarily by each individual employer about their pay gaps. It is presented in the language of choice of the employer. The Government of Canada does not modify or translate the content, as it belongs to the employer.