Ontario’s newest public holiday is coming up. Most employees in Ontario are entitled to public holiday pay. But did you know the way holiday pay is calculated has changed?
In short, what this means is your part-time staff will be paid a lot more holiday pay than before. Here’s how to calculate holiday pay, starting January 1, 2018 (including New Year’s Day!)
The new calculation involves taking the employee’s wages (earned in the last pay period, not the last 20 days) and dividing that by the number of days actually worked by the employee.
The calculation looks like this:
Total regular wages earned in the pay period immediately before the public holiday
Number of days worked in the pay period immediately before the public holiday
If an employee is on a leave of absence or was hired mid-pay period, you can still calculate holiday pay in a similar way.
What this means is that every employee will be paid a full (average) day of pay (as opposed to a pro-rated amount of pay over the past 20 calendar days).
The Ontario Government website has a fine public holiday calculator to assist in making the calculation, found here.
Don’t forget, if the employer requires the employee to work on a public holiday (which is rare, but it could happen), the employer can provide the employee with a substitute day off as long as the employer provides a specific written statement prior to the public holiday setting out (a) the public holiday on which the employee will work, (b) the date that is the substitute holiday, and (c) the date on which the statement was provided to the employee.
All of the details of the new changes to the law are in our newest publication “Employment Law For Dentists”. Contact us for more information.
