This is an opinion piece. Every number in it comes from Ontario's published Workforce Priority grid. The conclusions are ours. The facts of the change are in the news piece.
Two points, in a pool that has never been drawn
The change is small. Ontario added a top band to one of eleven factors, and it moves a qualifying registrant from 8 points to 10.
What makes it worth attention is the timing. Ontario opened the stream's pool on 4 August and has not run an invitation round from it. So nobody in the pool has a minimum score to compare against yet. Their standing is purely relative: what matters is how many people sit above them on the day Ontario first draws. On 5 October, everyone with an $80,000 year moved 2 points ahead of everyone without one, before the first draw was even held.
A 132-point grid built from steps of 2 to 5 points produces a lot of ties. Two points is enough to move someone past a crowd.
Ontario now counts pay twice
The grid already had a factor for pay: the hourly wage on the job offer, worth up to 15 points at $40 an hour or more. The earnings factor measures pay again, from tax records.
The two overlap almost completely at the top. $40 an hour, full-time, is about $83,200 a year. $80,000 a year works out to about $38.46 an hour. Someone who already scores the full 15 on wage will, in most cases, have an $80,000 year behind them and now collect the full 10 on earnings too.
That puts 25 of 132 points on pay. Location is worth 15. Language is worth 15. Before 5 October pay was worth up to 23 points. Now it is 25, and nobody below $80,000 gained anything.
My reading: this is a deliberate choice. A province that wanted to favour occupations would have changed the occupation factor, which already gives health 10 and trades 8. Ontario changed the one factor that tracks income. It is telling the pool it wants proven earners.
What the extra points look like
An illustrative profile, not anyone's real file: a software developer in Ottawa on a work permit, two-plus years in the job.
| Factor | This profile | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario work experience | over 24 months in the job-offer position | 18 |
| Hourly wage | $41.00 | 15 |
| Language | CLB 9 | 15 |
| Region | Eastern Ontario | 10 |
| Occupation | Category 2, natural and applied sciences | 6 |
| Education | master's degree | 8 |
| Canadian credentials | one | 5 |
| Legal status | valid work permit | 10 |
| Official languages | one | 5 |
| TEER | 1 | 9 |
| Earnings history | best year $85,000 | 10 |
| Total | 111 |
On 4 October that profile scored 109. Nothing about the person changed.
Now a personal support worker in Toronto on $24 an hour with a $48,000 best year. Wage scores 5, earnings scores 4. The change gives them nothing, so they are now 2 points further behind the developer than they were a week ago. Health is the highest-scoring occupation on Ontario's grid, and the new band still favours income over it.
It rewards the past, and nothing can be done about that now
Most factors have a lever. You can retest your language, take a job outside Toronto, or wait for more months in the role. Earnings history is a fixed record: the best year on a Notice of Assessment from the last five years. If your best year was $76,000, no decision you make before the first round turns it into $80,000.
That cuts both ways. Nobody can game this factor. But nobody can improve it either, and a grid that keeps adding weight to fixed history leaves fewer points that registrants can actually move.
The grid will move again
Ontario said "up to 130 points" on 20 July. Eleven weeks later, with no round held, it is 132. That is not a criticism; it is a province adjusting a tool before using it. But it means any score you see quoted as "safe" for Ontario is a guess about a grid that has already changed once, applied to a pool that has never been drawn.
What I would do
- Check that your score went up, if you expected it to. Ontario rescored existing profiles automatically. If your best year was $80,000 or more and your score did not change, the earnings you declared are the first thing to look at.
- Not chase a raise for 2 points. Earnings history looks back. A raise now changes your hourly wage factor only if the job offer itself changes.
- Look at region first. If you have a real choice of where to work, region swings up to 15 points, more than seven times this change.
- Ignore any Ontario cut-off you see quoted. There has been no round, so there is no minimum.
Check your own number
The Ontario calculator scores the new band, factor by factor, on the same grid used above.
Sources
Point values are from Ontario's Ontario Workforce Priority Stream page, read on 2026-10-16. The effective date and the absence of any round are from Ontario's 2026 program updates page, read the same day. The hourly equivalents assume 2,080 hours a year. Not immigration advice: scoring is a separate test from eligibility, and a licensed consultant or lawyer can assess your actual file. Tell us if anything here is wrong.