Category: 3. Business

A law mandating new requirements for job postings by companies of over 25 people will go into effect starting Jan. 1, 2026 in Ontario.

In the new year, companies have to disclose in publicly advertised job postings whether AI will be used when selecting a candidate and if the position advertised is vacant, according to incoming changes to the Ontario Employment Standards Act.

Postings will need to list the salary range for the position with a maximum difference of $50,000 and mention other forms of compensation, including commission and bonuses.

The law will also require companies to follow up with applicants within 45 days of their last interview to let them know whether they were successful.

Andrea Little, a freelance digital user-experience designer from Kitchener, has been searching for a full-time position since her previous employer did some restructuring this fall. 

She said many companies don’t provide details about the role or pay in their job postings. Little said she thinks transparency requirements will be helpful for applicants.

“Having that information up front, it helps me better gauge whether that role’s a fit and if it’s worth pursuing,” she said.

But there’s debate among experts about whether the transparency laws will change much for job seekers. 

Just because the salaries are posted as a certain range in the listing, does not mean companies are required to pay that amount, said Travis O’Rourke, president of recruitment firm Hays Canada.

O’Rourke said companies could post a job with a high rank and salary, but by the time the interviews happen, the company could decide they could get by filling a lower level position and adjust the pay and title accordingly. 

“This legislation allows you to completely do that,” he said. 

AI and the application game

Employers across the country are increasingly using AI while selecting candidates. Little said applicants don’t know who, or what, will be receiving their application.

“You can submit something online and a human will never see it,” said Little.

“If a job posting is written in present tense and your resume typically is written in past tense, it won’t see it as a match.” 

Eventually, if the application makes it past the AI stage of screening, a real person will read it. So applicants are having to walk the line of showing character and appealing to algorithms, Little said.

O’Rourke said the incoming legislation won’t provide much help, because there’s a large umbrella of what could be considered AI and it doesn’t require employers to be specific about how it is used.

Self-advocacy, less ghosting potential benefits

But posted salary ranges could make a difference for current employees of the companies that are hiring, according to Margaret Yap, a human resources management professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. 

If a current employee sees a posting for another role in their position with a higher minimum salary, they can advocate for themselves to receive the same pay. 

“Management will have to deal with all of these questions from their current employees,” Yap said.

Posted salaries could help improve workplace equity because it allows employees to better understand how their work is valued, said Allison Venditti, founder of Toronto-based pay advocacy group Moms At Work.

She said it could start open conversations about compensation and potential disparities.

“There was a silencing [culture] in place to get people not to talk about it,” she said. “And I’m saying, if you don’t want people to talk about it, you clearly know you’re doing something wrong.”

A common thread among everyone CBC News spoke to is that requiring companies to follow-up with applicants is a good thing. 

“With interview stages typically having an average of five interviews, to make it to round four and then not hear anything is — it’s hard,” said Little. “And the more it happens, the more devastating it becomes.”

Venditti said it’s also “really bad HR.”

“The fact that we have to legislate that is really sad,” she said.

December 31, 2025

WASHINGTON – In compliance with a court ordered deadline, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completed a robust review of 1,3-butadiene using gold standard science. We used the best research, data, and testing available, along with input from the public and independent expert peer reviewers to complete this thorough evaluation. Our comprehensive scientific review found potential unreasonable health risks for workers who breathe in this chemical at their jobs in 11 specific industrial settings. Use of personal protective equipment, which is often used in industrial workplaces will help mitigate these risks.  EPA did not find unreasonable risks to the environment, for consumers and to the general population including people living near facilities.  

As required by law under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA will now develop rules to protect workers from the risks we identified. This process will include meticulous consideration of health effects, exposure levels, economic impacts, and benefits of use, with extensive stakeholder engagement to ensure the resulting rules are both protective and practical.  

EPA is committed to radical transparency throughout the review and risk management process. The review process for butadiene has taken six years, with approximately 20,000 scientific studies considered during the review process for 30 different use cases. 

We improved our evaluation by incorporating real-world data and refining some conservative assumptions from our first draft, making our science more accurate and reliable. For example, EPA switched to a more detailed database (NEI) that includes specific details like how tall stacks are, what angle they release emissions at, and emission temperatures, which are not reported in TRI. This allowed our evaluation to move away from defaults to more accurate, facility-specific conditions. The NEI database also provides exact coordinates of where emissions are actually released, rather than just general facility locations. This geographic precision gives a more accurate picture of actual exposure risks.  

EPA also took into account additional feedback from peer reviewers recommending that we add together the risks from bladder cancer and leukemia. This resulted in a higher overall cancer risk estimate used in the risk evaluation. 

Regarding workplace exposures, which is where the highest risks occur, we followed robust scientific practices during our 1,3-butadiene evaluation to provide clear, reliable results. The final rules will give companies clear regulatory certainty while providing workers with necessary protections. Our safeguards will be tough and practical. We will ensure the protections we put in place are workable, taking additional action if new science emerges or conditions change.  

In addition to evaluating workplace exposures, we also thoroughly analyzed risk to the environment, to consumers, and to the general population. We are pleased to report that EPA did not find unreasonable risks to the environment, or for consumers or the general population, including people living near facilities. 

Background

1,3-butadiene is a colorless gas essential for manufacturing products Americans use every day, including car tires, adhesives and sealants, paints and coatings, and automotive care products. Consumer products only contain tiny, safe amounts less than 0.001 percent. Unreasonable risks are found in industrial settings where workers could be exposed to much higher levels that could lead to health risks which may include reduced birthweight pregnancies, anemia, leukemia, and bladder cancer. 

December 31, 2025

Guangzhou, China – December 31, 2025 – EHang Holdings Limited (Nasdaq: EH), a global leader in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), announced today that its EH216-series pilotless electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft has successfully completed a point-to-point flight across the Qiongzhou Strait. The aircraft departed from Nanhai Mingzhu Island in Haikou City, Hainan Province, and arrived at Xuwen Port in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, completing the 22-kilometer journey in just 18 minutes. This represents a significant reduction from the typical 60–90 minutes ferry crossing, improving travel efficiency by approximately 70–80%. This validates the technical capabilities and efficiency of pilotless eVTOLs in over-water operations and lays a solid technological foundation for future coordinated low-altitude mobility development between Hainan and Guangdong Provinces.

 

Image: EH216-series eVTOL completes a point-to-point flight from Haikou, Hainan to Zhanjiang, Guangdong, crossing the Qiongzhou Strait

 

The EH216-series aircraft that successfully crossed the strait is equipped with a high-energy solid-state battery co-developed by EHang and its partner Inx Energy. This flight effectively demonstrates the stable performance of this battery in complex environments such as over-water eVTOL operations, providing strong technical support for diverse applications including cross-strait transportation, island tourism, maritime emergency response, and island logistics. It also paves the way for effective inter-provincial connectivity and extends to longer-range flights covering multiple cities within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, enabling inter-city passenger and cargo transport and accelerating the commercialization of the low-altitude economy.

 

EHang, in collaboration with its partners, has actively conducted application scenario flights under various weather conditions and terrains worldwide. It has accumulated extensive safe flight data in environments exceeding 3,000 meters in altitude, extreme cold and heat, typhoons, rain, snow, and over rivers, lakes, and seas. This experience provided crucial support and assurance for this cross-strait flight. The EHang team completed route planning, weather surveying, and all necessary flight support preparations in the shortest time possible. The aircraft achieved stable flight across the strait under conditions of long distance and rapidly changing winds and waves, showcasing its high-redundancy safety performance and validating the leading capabilities of EHang’s pilotless aircraft.

 

The flight was witnessed by distinguished guests at the “Soaring Skyward” event series in the Hainan Free Trade Port, including Mr. Dong Zhiyi, Chief Low-Altitude Economy Expert at the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics and former Deputy Administrator of the Civil Aviation Administration of China; Mr. Xiao Faxuan, Chairman of Hainan Airport Group; Mr. Luo Hongxia, Secretary of Xuwen County, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province; Mr. Liu Libo, Chairman of Pengcheng Low-Altitude Economy Industry Development (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and Executive President of the Greater Bay Area Low-Altitude Economy UAV Association; Mr. Wang Dong, Vice President of EHang and General Manager of EHang General Aviation; and Mr. He Tianxing, Vice President of EHang. As the first pilotless human-carrying eVTOL to cross the Qiongzhou Strait, the EH216-series received high praise for its safe and stable performance.

 

Image: EH216-series eVTOL with the solid-state battery completes a flight, crossing the Qiongzhou Strait

 

With the Hainan Free Trade Port now fully operational under its special customs regime, a range of tailored low-altitude application scenarios are emerging. These encompass low-altitude passenger transport to alleviate congestion across the Qiongzhou Strait, cross-border logistics to enhance the Port’s circulation efficiency, and cross-strait tourism linking the cultural resources of Hainan and Guangdong.

This EH216-series flight serves not only to validate the technology for these post-customs-closure scenarios but also to establish a potential low-altitude corridor between Hainan and Guangdong. This will further help EHang solidify its development foundation across both provinces, foster international exchange, and cultivate a low-altitude application ecosystem, thereby injecting new momentum into Hainan’s low-altitude economy and the cultivation of new quality productive forces for the Free Trade Port.

 

Mr. Xiao Faxuan, Chairman of Hainan Airport Group, stated in his address, “EHang’s successful pilotless eVTOL flight across the Qiongzhou Strait is a vivid example of innovative development in Hainan’s low-altitude economy. We will seize the opportunity presented by the Free Trade Port’s special customs operations to build a pioneer zone for low-altitude economy applications, empowering industrial development through practical applications and making the low-altitude economy a new growth engine for the Free Trade Port. We will also deepen collaboration between Hainan Province and Guangdong Province, integrate policy and industrial resources across both provinces, facilitate smooth cross-province air mobility, and unite powerful synergies for low-altitude economy development, thereby infusing greater vitality into the Hainan Free Trade Port.”

 

Wang Zhao, Chief Operating Officer of EHang, said, “The successful crossing of the Qiongzhou Strait by our EH216-series pilotless eVTOL validates its adaptability and the efficiency gains it brings in complex environments like over-water routes. This achievement is also a significant result of our collaboration with partners to comprehensively enhance core safety performance and jointly build a diverse application ecosystem. Coinciding with the historic opportunity of the Hainan Free Trade Port’s special customs operations, the low-altitude economy—a key emerging sector for the Port—is facing promising growth prospects. EHang will leverage this opportunity to continue empowering diverse applications in Hainan, including long-distance logistics, and emergency response, with our pilotless aircraft technology. We are committed to supporting Hainan in building a national innovation and demonstration hub for the low-altitude economy.

About EHang

EHang (Nasdaq: EH) is the world’s leading advanced air mobility (“AAM”) technology platform company, committed to making safe, autonomous, and eco-friendly air mobility accessible to everyone. The company develops and manufactures a diversified portfolio of pilotless electric vertical take-off and landing (“eVTOL”) aircraft for a wide range of use cases, including aerial tourism, intra-city transport, intercity travel, logistics and emergency firefighting. Its flagship model, EH216-S, has obtained the world’s first type certificate, production certificate and standard airworthiness certificate for pilotless eVTOL issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and is now commercially operated under the country’s first Air Operator Certificates for human-carrying eVTOL services. Complementing this, EHang’s VT35 expands its reach into long-range and intercity scenarios, supporting the development of a multi-tiered low-altitude mobility network. By integrating advanced autonomous technologies with scalable operational infrastructure, EHang is redefining how people and goods move—across cities, regions, and natural barriers—shaping the future of air mobility. For more information, please visit www.ehang.com.

 

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains statements that may constitute “forward-looking” statements pursuant to the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “likely to” and similar statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about management’s beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to those relating to certifications, our expectations regarding demand for, and market acceptance of, our products and solutions and the commercialization of UAM services, our relationships with strategic partners, and current litigation and potential litigation involving us. Management has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While they believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond management’s control. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause EHang’s actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.