Statutory holidays often fall on a Friday or a Monday, allowing for that sweet extended break.
The next question is do my employees need to be paid while chilling at the beachside, sipping on a Margarita?
In BC remember the 30/15 rule: To be eligible for stat pay an employee must have been employed for 30 calendar days before the stat holiday and have worked or earned wages on 15 of those 30 days.
Here’s an example: Canada Day is July 1st. Your employee, Martha, began work on June 1st. She worked 15 days of the last 30 calendar days. She gets paid for Canada Day whether she works it or not.
Eligibility is determined by days worked, rather than hours, meaning it applies to both full-time and part-time employees, although the 15-day stipulation rules out most part-time employees.
At Homeroom, all our full-service payroll clients are given a spreadsheet that tracks and calculates stat eligibility. This policy might vary from bookkeeper to bookkeeper, so make sure you know.
If you’re taking care of it yourself, here’s how you’d figure out Martha’s stat pay for Canada Day.
- Take the total hours she worked in the 30 days before the stat holiday.
- Divide it by the number of days worked.
- Then multiply by her rate of pay.
Let’s say Martha worked 60 hours in 16 days and earns $25 per hour, she would be paid $93.75 on Canada Day (60/16 x 25 = 93.75).
Now let’s say that Martha agrees to work on Canada Day. Eligible employees are paid time-and-a-half for the first 12 hours on a stat holiday. This is in addition to the stat pay that we calculated in the previous paragraph.
However, all this changes if your employee worked less than 15 days since June 1st. In that case, they’re not eligible for stat holiday pay and if they work a stat holiday, they’re paid as if it were a regular work day.
In BC, there are 11 stat holidays: New Years Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, B.C. Day, Labour Day, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, and Christmas Day.
As an employer, you can choose to give more, such as Easter Monday or Boxing Day, and can work out a custom agreement with your employees for these days.
Know someone in construction trades or someone selling on Etsy who could use an extra hand? Homeroom has recently expanded its team, and we are able to take on more clients. Get in touch with us today here.
