Tools · Ontario
Public holiday pay is not a day's pay.
For an assignment employee it is a formula over the four work weeks before the holiday, so it changes with every holiday and for every person. This works it out.
The four weeks before
Public holiday pay
—
The rule
Four work weeks, plus the vacation pay, over twenty.
Twenty, not the days worked. The divisor is fixed by the Act. It is not an average of the shifts somebody actually got.
For an assignment employee of a temporary help agency, public holiday pay is the regular wages earned in the four work weeks before the work week with the public holiday in it, plus the vacation pay payable for those four work weeks, divided by twenty.
Two consequences agencies routinely get caught by. Somebody who worked heavily in those four weeks and nothing since is still owed on the four weeks. And somebody who has been with you two years but had a quiet month is owed on the quiet month — length of service does not enter the formula at all.
This calculates the entitlement for a holiday not worked. If the employee works the public holiday there are two further routes — premium pay on top, or a substitute day off with public holiday pay — and which applies depends on what was agreed. The ESA guide for temporary help agencies covers both →
Worked example
The arithmetic, spelled out.
The figures in the calculator above, so the page is still useful with JavaScript off and you can check the tool against something.
- Regular wages, four work weeks
- $2,640.00 — four weeks at roughly $660
- Vacation pay payable
- $105.60 — 4% of those wages, paid each cheque
- Total
- $2,745.60
- Divided by 20
- $137.28 of public holiday pay
- What it is not
- Not a shift at $22 × 8 hours = $176. Not zero because they were not on assignment that week.
Nine of these a year, per person.
The product works them out from the hours already on the record.