Overview

Projects are funded under the Eastern Ontario Development Fund (EODF) and Southwestern Ontario Development Fund (SWODF) to achieve job creation and investment objectives.

As a result, you should assess the prospects for achieving these objectives through your project and ensure the numbers are as accurate as possible when the numbers are submitted in the application form.

Job creation requirement

Companies must commit to creating at least five new jobs. Companies with fewer than 15 employees must commit to growing their workforce by 30%.

Key definitions

“Jobs” are full-time equivalent “Active Employees” on this page.

“Active Employee” means an employee (or agency contract employee) of the recipient who is actively employed and actively paid.

For greater certainty, a person on layoff is not considered to be “actively employed” and does not qualify as an “Active Employee” and an employee on a voluntary leave of absence, including parental leave, shall continue to be considered an “Active Employee” but his/her replacement during such absence shall not be considered as an additional active employee.

Hourly employees

A “Job” for an hourly paid active employee means in respect of any fiscal year, x, where x = Formula used for jobs where x equals a divided by 2000., and a ≤ 2000;

Where “a” = the total number of paid work hours during each fiscal year by active employees employed by the recipient, including hours taken as paid vacation, sick leave, and for other similar reasons, at the project facility or facilities. 

For clarity, any individual active employee may not account for more than one Job or 2,000 hours of paid work during each fiscal year.

Salaried employees

A “Job” for a salaried active employee means a full-time job of a salaried active employee of the recipient during one entire fiscal year. If a salaried active employee is employed for fewer than 12 months over a fiscal year, each full month that the active employee is actually employed shall be considered to be one-twelfth of a “Job.”

Agency contract employees

“Agency Contract Employees” is defined as those individuals employed by an independent third-party supplier of contract workers (such supplier being approved by the recipient), and who are on an assignment performing work at the project facility or facilities for at least 80% of the 12-month period.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, any jobs that may be outsourced from the project facility shall not be included in the definition and calculation of “Jobs.”

Information to help complete section F in the application form

This section helps you complete section F of the application form. In this section, we’ll use “ABC Inc.” as a fictional company in the examples.

Determine and convert your data

Project length

  • What is the duration of the project in fiscal years? Please round up.
    • Note: Projects must be between three and four years to allow time for companies to meet investment targets and job creation and retention targets.
    • Example: ABC Inc. is starting their project on March 1. Their fiscal year ends on December 31. This will be considered Year 1 of the project. The project will be a four-year project.

New jobs

  • Determine the number of new full-time positions to be hired, by fiscal year (headcount).
    • Example: ABC Inc. has determined the following:
      • Year 1: four new full-time positions
      • Year 2: five new full-time positions
      • Year 3: two new full-time positions
      • Year 4: two new full-time positions
      • Year 5: zero new full-time positions
  • Determine the number of new part-time positions to be hired, by fiscal year (headcount).
    • Example: ABC Inc. has determined the following:
      • Year 1: two new part-time positions
  • Converting full-time and part-time positions to the definition of full-time equivalent jobs as per the Regional Development Program.
    • Note: Full-time equivalent defines full-time employees as working a total of 2,000 hours of paid work per year. One full-time employee equates to a maximum of 2,000 hours of paid work. For part-time positions, determine the number of hours worked per year and convert that to a full-time equivalent.
    • Example: ABC Inc. has noted that their full-time position employees fall within the definition of a full-time equivalent job. Their two part-time position employees each work 1,000 hours of paid work in a year, so each of them would count as 0.5 of a full-time equivalent job. So for ABC Inc,. their full-time equivalent job count would be:
      • Year 1: five new jobs (4+0.5+0.5 – four full-time and two part-time)
      • Year 2: five new jobs
      • Year 3: two new jobs
      • Year 4: two new jobs
      • Year 5: zero new jobs

If you plan to hire any contract or agency employees, they would need to be included as well.

Retained jobs – baseline level of full-time equivalent jobs

  • Determine the number of existing full-time positions at project start then convert it to a full-time equivalent or 2,000 hours of paid work basis at the project facility.
    • Note: Full-time equivalent defines full time employees working a total of 2,000 hours of paid work or more per year. One full-time employee equates to a maximum of 2,000 paid work hours.
    • Example: ABC Inc. counted 28 existing full-time positions working at their facility at the start of the project.
  • · Determine the number of existing part-time positions at project start then convert it to a full-time equivalent job or 2,000 paid work hours at the project facility.
    • Note: On average, how many hours do the existing part-time employees work per year?
    • Example: ABC Inc. counted 4 existing part-time positions working at their facility at the start of the project and they each work on average 1,000 paid work hours. This converts to 2 existing full-time equivalent jobs.

If you employ any contract or agency employees, they would need to be included as well.

Enter your data into the application form

This will be shown by using data from the ABC Inc. example.

Summary data

New full-time equivalent jobs:

  • Year 1: five new jobs
  • Year 2: five new jobs
  • Year 3: two new jobs
  • Year 4: two new jobs
  • Year 5: zero new jobs

Retained full-time equivalent jobs: 30 retained jobs (28 from the full-time positions and two from the part-time positions)

With this information, the following would be submitted in the application form.

To be entered into the full application form

Year 1
New jobs: 5
Retained jobs: 30

Year 2
New jobs: 5
Retained jobs: 30

Year 3
New jobs: 2
Retained jobs: 30

Year 4
New jobs:
Retained jobs: 30

Year 5
New jobs: 0
Retained jobs: 30