About Us

Welcome to our website! We are thrilled to have you here and we appreciate your interest in learning more about us.

We are a team of passionate individuals who are dedicated to providing high-quality services to our users. We believe in providing exceptional customer service and building long-lasting relationships with our users. We take pride in the quality of our services, and we are always striving to improve and innovate.

The data regarding public sector employees that you will find on this website was sourced from the Ontario Sunshine List. We have taken this data and subjected it to a rigorous processing procedure in order to produce meaningful information for our users.

We are constantly looking for ways to improve our services, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions. If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Our Approach

The information about public sector employees presented on this website originates from the Ontario Sunshine List. OSList.ca has meticulously processed this data through a rigorous procedure to generate meaningful insights for its users. Ontario introduced the sunshine list in 1996 under the Mike Harris government.

Data Collection:

• The website relies solely on publicly available sunshine lists from the Government of Ontario's official website for data collection.
• Additional data files, including Addendum, Deletions, and Changes, are also incorporated to enhance completeness.
• Algorithms are employed to periodically check and update these files to ensure data accuracy.
• The site updates within 24 hours of the annual release of the sunshine list by the Government of Ontario.

Data Processing:

• Specific algorithms are developed for the sunshine list dataset to process and clean the data.
• Data cleaning aims to eliminate errors and standardize employer names, position titles, and first and last names for consistency.
• The site defines and utilizes "common records" to identify individuals based on identical names, employer names, and records from different years.
• Algorithms are manually checked to maintain accuracy and avoid over-aggressiveness.

Calculations:

• Year-over-year salary increases are calculated based on common records, forming the basis for consistent calculations.
• Common records are defined by identical first and last names, identical employer names, and records from different years.
• Salaries, both average and median, are computed for both job titles and employers.
• The gender of employees is identified based on their first names utilizing the genderize.io API.

Presentation:

• Information is categorized into five distinct areas: Years, Sectors, Job Titles, Employers, and Employees.
• The database comprises more than 6,000 employers, 100,000 unique position titles, and half a million employees spanning the last 22 years, all presented through tables and charts.
• Users of the site can explore data by searching for Job Titles, Employers, and Employees.
• The site features FAQs regarding Employers and Job Titles.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us. We look forward to serving you and exceeding your expectations.