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Team Council
The Cost Before the First Paycheque: Canadian Team Council Evidence on Hiring Costs
Subject: Hiring costs and the decision to employ formally
1. Purpose and scope
1. This submission places member evidence before the Team Council on TM-001, the proposed Fair Hiring Cost Standard. Its focus is the cost and administrative burden a small employer encounters when considering an early hire. The evidence is relevant to the Council’s stated question: whether simpler, more predictable employment costs for a business’s first ten hires could help small employers hire formally.
2. The submission is made by three Canadian Team Council members. Their identities and businesses are not disclosed. They have consented to publication of the evidence in this form. The Secretariat does not identify their businesses, customers, employees, or any public or private organization as the subject of an allegation.
3. The evidentiary base is small. As at 17 March 2026, the Team Council had 14 members from 11 countries and had received three reports from two countries. The reports concerned hiring costs. The reported median amount at stake was approximately US$16,416. The Secretariat’s summary does not give the amount for each report, a Canadian-only median, or the original amounts in Canadian dollars. This submission does not estimate or reconstruct those missing figures.
4. The Secretariat’s March 17 data records the three reports as the Council’s complete report count at that date. It identifies Canada as the country associated with two reports and Germany with one. The
Canadian members’ submission therefore sits within a small, cross-country evidence base; it should not be treated as a representative estimate of the experience of all Canadian employers or of all small employers worldwide.
5. The submission is intended to inform the drafting stage, not to establish a legal finding, quantify a national cost burden, or determine whether a particular employer complied with law. It distinguishes reported evidence from the Secretariat’s analysis and from recommendations that remain open for consultation.
2. Evidence and chronology
A. Council record
6. The Team Council’s agenda was opened through the call for evidence, RC/TM/2026/1, dated 10 February 2026. That call placed TM-001 on the Council’s agenda as a question about the costs of hiring. The present submission follows the call and records a consented contribution by three members.
7. The Secretariat’s data snapshot dated 17 March 2026 reports three Team Council submissions from two countries. The country summary lists Canada with two reports and Germany with one. The snapshot classifies all three as concerning hiring costs. It also records the Team Council’s report-level distribution of business size: 33 per cent each for businesses with 2–9 team members, 10–49 team members, and “Just me”. The summary does not identify which category applies to any particular report.
8. The snapshot records a median amount at stake of approximately US$16,416 for the Team Council’s evidence. It does not specify whether that amount represents a direct payment, a projected cost, an estimate of foregone hiring, or another measure. Nor does it specify the period covered or the method used to convert currencies. Accordingly, this submission uses the figure only as the
reported Council-wide median, not as a Canadian member’s individual loss or an annual cost.
9. The Secretariat’s data extract does not include dated events from the members’ hiring experiences, copies or descriptions of individual forms, payroll records, invoices, correspondence, or calculations.
B. Timeline of the record
| Date | Event or record | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 10 February 2026 | RC/TM/2026/1, Call for evidence: Team Council agenda item TM-001 | The Council opened the hiring-cost question for evidence. |
| By 17 March 2026 | Three Team Council reports recorded from two countries | The reports were categorized as hiring-cost reports; the summary gives no individual chronology or document inventory. |
| 17 March 2026 | RC/TM/2026/S.1 published with member consent | Three Canadian members’ contribution is placed before the Council, with the limits of the underlying extract stated. |
10. The sequence above is a chronology of the Council record, not a claim that all three reports were submitted on the same date or that the members experienced the same hiring process. The Secretariat’s records contain no more detailed date sequence.
C. Currency and documents
11. The evidence summary gives the amount at stake in US dollars only: approximately US$16,416 at the median. It does not state the original Canadian-dollar figures or a conversion date or rate. The Secretariat recommends that any later case-level publication show the member’s original currency and amount, the date and source of any conversion rate, and the resulting US-dollar equivalent.
12. The Secretariat’s records do not list individual documents. They do not identify a particular employment agreement, government form,
payroll statement, tax record, bank document, or correspondence among the members’ records.
13. This is a material evidence gap for draft design. A standard addressing the costs that arise before hiring should be informed, where members consent, by the documents and decision points that create uncertainty: for instance, the point at which an employer can calculate total cost, register for payroll, and understand the timing of required payments. These are proposed categories for future evidence collection, not claims that a particular document caused the members’ reported experiences.
3. Analysis against the five-part pattern test
14. Reseated’s process tests reported problems against Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread, and Corroboration before moving from reports to a draft fix. The following assessment is provisional and specific to the evidence available on 17 March. It is not a declaration that TM-001 has passed the pattern test.
Volume
15. The Team Council had three reports in total, all categorized as hiring-cost reports. This is an initial signal, but a low volume. The three reports do not establish the prevalence of the issue among Team Council members, Canadian employers, or MSMEs generally. The group submitting this document consists of three members, but that fact does not expand the underlying report count or make the evidence statistically representative.
16. The wider economic context explains why the issue merits examination, but it does not cure the limits of the member sample. MSMEs account for approximately 90 per cent of businesses, 60–70 per cent of employment, and around 50 per cent of GDP worldwide.1 These global figures describe the importance of the sector; they do not show
that hiring costs caused any particular employment outcome in the reports before the Council.
Frequency
17. The data summary does not show how often a cost arose, how many times an employer postponed a hire, or whether the same member encountered the issue repeatedly. The Secretariat’s summary contains no reporting-period breakdown beyond stating that three reports were filed and that three Team Council reports had been received in the last 30 days. That count may indicate recent activity in a small Council, but it cannot establish recurring events within an individual business.
18. The submission therefore treats frequency as not established at case level. Further evidence should ask members to distinguish one-off start-up expenses from recurring contributions, administrative steps repeated for each hire, and costs that vary over time. Those distinctions matter to a standard intended to make costs predictable rather than simply lower in a single instance.
Consistency
19. All three Team Council reports are categorized as concerning hiring costs. This common classification offers a limited indication of consistency in the broad problem area. It does not show that the reports identify the same charge, rule, process, or point in the hiring decision. Nor does it prove that the same remedy would address all three experiences.
20. The Council should therefore preserve the distinction between a shared category and a demonstrated common mechanism. In future evidence forms, members should be asked what cost or uncertainty was encountered, when it became knowable, whether it was recurring or one-time, and what effect it had on the hiring decision. Answers should be publishable in aggregate without naming a business or an individual employee.
Spread
21. The Team Council’s three reports came from two countries: Canada and Germany. This provides some cross-border spread. The evidence is nevertheless too small to show that a single legal or administrative mechanism operates in both jurisdictions. The two Canadian reports and one German report should not be merged into a claim about a uniform international rule.
22. The global role of small employers makes cross-country learning relevant. The International Labour Organization estimates that MSMEs account for around 70 per cent of employment worldwide and that about 80 per cent operate in the informal economy.2 These figures support attention to whether formal hiring is accessible to small employers. They do not establish that the three reports arose from informality, that any member hired informally, or that a particular contribution caused an employer to remain informal.
Corroboration
23. Multiple reports provide some corroboration that hiring costs are a concern raised by Team Council members. The Secretariat’s evidence summary does not identify attachments, independent records, or a method for comparing the reports against documents.
24. The reported median amount at stake is an aggregate indicator, not independent verification of a particular cost. Without a definition of “amount at stake,” a case-level currency amount, and supporting records, it cannot be used to calculate a standard contribution, estimate an employer’s typical burden, or compare the cost of a first hire with later hires.
25. On the evidence now available, the five tests yield a bounded conclusion: the issue has low but relevant volume; frequency within individual cases is not established; the reports share a broad hiring-cost category; there is limited spread across two countries; and
documentary corroboration is not assessable from the summary. The Council should seek additional evidence before claiming a fully established pattern.
4. Legal context and limits
26. The Secretariat’s records contain no description or citation of Canadian employment, payroll, tax, or social-contribution law.
27. The call for evidence, RC/TM/2026/1, frames TM-001 as a policy question about employment costs for a small employer’s first ten hires. The present submission responds to that agenda. It is not a legal opinion and does not ask the Council to recommend non-compliance with any existing obligation. Any draft should be reviewed against the relevant law in each jurisdiction by qualified local experts before it is presented as implementable guidance.
28. The Secretariat should invite members to identify the jurisdiction and type of cost in future submissions, while avoiding publication of sensitive personal or business information. Where members provide legal documents, the evidence record should distinguish the text of a rule from the member’s understanding of it and from the practical effect reported. This distinction will help the Council avoid turning individual interpretation into a statement of law.
5. Recommendations for the draft
29. The submitting members ask the Council to retain the core objective of TM-001: make the first ten hires easier to cost, register, and manage formally. The proposal should be framed as a standard for predictable and accessible processes, not as a conclusion that a particular jurisdiction’s current law is unlawful or that every small employer faces the same burden.
- Make the total cost visible before commitment. The draft should recommend a simple, authoritative way for an employer to identify the expected employer-side cost of a hire, including the timing of payments and the point at which amounts may change. It should distinguish estimates from binding amounts and explain which inputs an employer must provide.
- Support a phased approach for the first ten hires. The draft should invite jurisdictions to consider phased social contributions for early hires, with clear eligibility, duration, and transition rules. It should not prescribe a universal rate or phase length on the present evidence. Any proposal must preserve applicable worker protections and be assessed for its effect on public revenue and social insurance.
- Provide one-stop payroll registration. The standard should encourage a single, understandable registration pathway, or a coordinated service that avoids repeated entry of the same information. It should identify the responsible contact point and explain how an employer can confirm that registration is complete.
- Set predictable rules and explain changes. Employers should be able to find the applicable requirements, effective dates, payment schedule, and a plain-language explanation of changes. The draft should encourage advance notice where rules change and a stable way to calculate expected obligations.
- Design for very small employers. The evidence base includes businesses across the reported size categories “Just me,” 2–9, and 10–49 team members. The draft should not assume that an employer has dedicated payroll staff. Instructions should be usable by an owner managing a first hire, while remaining workable for a business that grows.
- Build an evidence and review mechanism. Any adopted measure should be evaluated using anonymized information about registration completion, time to understand total cost, cost predictability, and whether employers report that they can hire formally. The Council should avoid claiming that a change increased formal hiring unless the evaluation can support that conclusion.
- Require local legal review and worker safeguards. Because this submission contains no jurisdiction-specific legal analysis, the draft should state that implementation depends on local law. Phasing or simplification should not be described as permission to withhold required pay, evade contributions, or reduce protections.
30. The Council should keep the distinction between a recommended design principle and a proven effect. A one-stop process may reduce administrative duplication; clearer cost information may support better planning; and phased contributions may reduce early cost pressure. These are rational objectives for consultation, but the three reports summarized here do not demonstrate the size of any effect.
31. For the next evidence round, the Secretariat should request a dated sequence of the hiring decision, the first estimate of total cost, registration steps, and any change that affected the decision. Members should be invited, but not required, to supply redacted supporting material. For each monetary figure, the collection form should ask for the original currency, amount, period, whether it is actual or estimated, and any basis for a US-dollar conversion. This would improve comparison without making disclosure of a business identity a condition of participation.
6. Conclusion
32. The evidence submitted by three Canadian members adds a focused contribution to a small Team Council record: three reports from two countries, all classified as hiring-cost reports, with a Council-wide
median amount at stake of approximately US$16,416. The records do not establish individual timelines, itemized costs, original Canadian-dollar amounts, or documentary corroboration.
33. The Secretariat recommends that the Council use this evidence to shape the questions and safeguards in a draft, while continuing to gather case-level evidence before making broad claims about frequency, legal causes, or effects on formal employment. A useful Fair Hiring Cost Standard should help a small employer understand total cost, complete payroll registration through a clear route, and plan under predictable rules—without treating an unverified estimate as a legal fact or weakening worker protections.
Sources
- United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day: global MSME figures and observance date. https://www.un.org/en/observances/micro-small-medium-businesses-day
- International Labour Organization, Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises: global employment and informality figures. https://www.ilo.org/topics-and-sectors/micro-small-and-medium-enterprises
Notes and sources
Sources
This document has no standing until adopted under the Founders Charter. Reseated Councils is not affiliated with the United Nations.