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Holiday Pay

Where do I find information about holiday pay?

This information outlines the holidays and holiday pay that employers must give to their employees under the Employment Standards Act. If you are not a member of a labour union or if you are an employer with employees who have no union, then this information may be important to you.

The Employment Standards Act give employees who qualify six holidays with pay:

• New Year's Day
• Good Friday
• Canada Day
• Labour Day
• Remembrance Day and
• Christmas Day.

Who Qualifies for Paid Holidays:
Not all employees qualify for these holidays. In order to have a day off with pay for these holidays, an employee must:

• be employed for/with the same employer for 30 calendar days prior to the holiday
• have earned wages on at least 15 of the 30 calendar days before the holiday
• have worked his/her last scheduled shift before the holiday and his/her first scheduled shift after the holiday.

First, during the 30 calendar days right before the holiday, the employee must receive pay for 15 of those days.
Second, the employee must have worked his/her last scheduled shift or day before the holiday and the first scheduled shift or day after the holiday. Again, the important word to remember is "scheduled".
Many people believe this means that if he/she does not work the day after the holiday then he/she is not qualified to receive holiday pay. If the day is one when he/she is not scheduled to work, then he/she may still qualify for the paid holiday.

Exception
If an employer tells an employee not to report for work on his last scheduled work day immediately before the holiday, or the next scheduled work day after the holiday, the employee is still entitled to receive holiday pay.

Workers Who Are Not Covered
Workers who are not covered by the rules for holiday pay include:

• salespersons whose income is derived primarily from commission on sales
• farm labourers

Paying an Employee for a Holiday
If an employee meets the two qualifications listed above and is given the day off, the employer must pay a regular day's pay for that holiday. If the employee's hours of work change from day to day, or if wages change from pay to pay, the employer could average hours or wages over 30 previous days to calculate what to pay the employee for the holiday.
If the holiday falls on an employee's regular day off, the employee is entitled to another day off with pay.

Calculating a Wage When the Employee Works on a Holiday
An employee who works on a holiday and who is qualified to be paid holiday pay is entitled to receive both of the following:

• the amount the employee would have normally received for that day
• one and one-half times the employee's regular rate of wages for the number of hours worked on that holiday
• or by giving the employee another day off with pay for the equivalent hours worked

The Guide to Employment Standards is available online as a PDF document.

Contact

Charlottetown

J. Elmer Blanchard Building

Yeo, Robert (Chief Labour Standards Officer)