New Saskatchewan Employment Standards Regulations set to come into force January 1, 2026

Bill No. 5 contains a number of notable amendments to The Saskatchewan Employment Act (SEA) and will come into force January 1, 2026. Accompanying this, on December 24, 2025, The Employment Standards Regulations, 2025 (ESR) were published. The ESR will repeal and replace The Conditions of Employment Regulations, The Minimum Wage Regulations, 2014, and the current version of The Employment Standards Regulations. The ESR is also set to come into force on January 1, 2026.

Some of the notable changes from the ESR include:

• Definition of gratuity – As of January 1, 2026, the SEA prohibits employers from withholding and deducting gratuities from employees’ wages. The ESR defines gratuities to include a voluntary payment made to an employee by a customer, a voluntary payment made to an employer by a customer in circumstances where the payment was intended or assumed to be made to an employee and payment of a service charge imposed on a customer when the payment is intended or assumed to be kept or shared with an employee.
• Gratuity pooling arrangements – The ESR permits an employer to establish a pooling arrangement to collect and redistribute gratuities among some or all of their employees. The only parameters upon such pooling arrangements are that an employer, director or shareholder of an employer cannot share in the redistribution of gratuities in the pooling arrangement except for in limited circumstances. Those limited circumstances include where a sole proprietor, partner in a partnership, director or shareholder who performs, to a substantial degree, the work of the employees in the pooling arrangement or employees in the same industry who commonly share gratuities in a pooling arrangement.
• Modified work arrangement – Modified work arrangements will be permitted to apply to employees who work on average less than 30 hours per week. Employees who worked on average less than 30 hours per week were previously exempt from participating in modified work arrangements.
• Exemption from overtime – Professional practitioners who were licensed or registered pursuant to any Act were exempt from the overtime requirements as set out in section 2-12, 2-17, 2-18 and 2-19 of the SEA. This exemption has been modified to now only apply to professionals who are required to be licensed or registered in accordance with any Act and may provide the profession’s services without the authorization or the supervision of another professional.
• Removal of two consecutive days of rest – The requirement for certain retail workers to have two consecutive days of rest has been removed.
• Entitlement to bereavement leave – An employee will be entitled to take bereavement leave for any person the employee considers to be a close relative. No further parameters were provided in determining the definition of who an employee considers to be a close relative. This is in addition to the employee’s ability to take bereavement leave for the death of a member of the employee’s immediate family and the loss of pregnancy of the employee, the employee’s immediate family member or any other person if the employee would have been a parent to a child born as the result of the pregnancy, as outlined in the amendments to the SEA.
• Substituting another day for a public holiday – An employer will have the ability to substitute another day for any public holiday – except for Remembrance Day – if agreed upon by the employer and the employee or a majority of employees, as the case may be. The substituted day must take place within four weeks of the public holiday. Prior to the ESR, employers were required to apply to the Director of Employment Standards for a permit to observe a public holiday on another day.
• Notice of group termination – The threshold number of employees to trigger the requirement to provide written notice of a group termination was increased from 10 employees to 25 or more employees.
• Definition of student learner – The definition of “student learner” has been updated to include “a person who is given training or work experience through a program recognized by the minister.” A student learner does not include an intern. Accordingly, a person who is engaged in activities associated with being an intern will be considered an employee rather than a student learner. This means that a student learner will have all of the same protections under the SEA and the ESR as any other employee.
• Amount of deposit – Currently, employers or corporate directors who dispute liability or the amount set out in a wage assessment are required to make a deposit of the amount set out in the wage assessment up to a maximum of $500. This amount will increase up to a maximum of $1,000.
• Service on the Director of Employment Standards – There are changes made concerning the requirements for serving documents on the Director of Employment Standards including new methods for service, requirements for service by email, requirements for service by fax and regulations on when service is deemed effected.
• Service by the Director of Employment Standards – If the Director of Employment Standards is unable to serve documents or notice through the regular means outlined in the SEA, they will be able to serve the document or notice by publishing it in a newspaper or website.

As a reminder, once the ESR is in force, employers are required to post a copy of the ESR in a clearly visible conspicuous area where employees engage in their duties.

Our labour and employment group is available to help Saskatchewan workplaces understand what these changes to the ESR mean for organizations, including reviewing existing policies and procedures to ensure compliance with these upcoming changes before they come into force.

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