This year, our Christmas and New Year’s holidays are on weekends, which is leading to a lot of questions surrounding Statutory Holiday time off and pay calculations. Here is a quick recap to help you out.
If your business is OPEN on the holidays (Christmas & New Year’s Day, Boxing Day), employees who work these days are entitled to 1.5 times their regular rate for all hours worked on the holiday itself, plus EITHER stat holiday pay for that day, OR another regular workday off with stat holiday pay (this can be taken up to 3 months after the actual holiday that is worked).
If your business is usually open, but you choose to close on the holidays (Saturday/Sunday), employees who would have been scheduled to work those days are deemed to be observing the holidays on the actual days. They receive holiday pay but are not entitled to any extra days off.
Whether your business is normally open or closed, employees who are not normally scheduled to work on the holiday days (Saturday and/or Sunday) are entitled to take Monday and/or Tuesday off with holiday pay for these days.
If your business is normally CLOSED on the actual holidays, employees are entitled to another regular workday off with stat holiday pay (Monday/Tuesday).
The employee can choose to take the alternate day off at a later time with the employee’s written agreement (i.e., add it on to a vacation leave later in the year) and they would still receive the holiday pay for this day.
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