Leap year: Corporations to save up to $2 billion as millions of salaried workers in Canada will work for free on Feb. 29
Many Canadians are about to work a day for free — and might not even realize it.
Another leap year is here, which means 2024 will have an extra day on Thursday, Feb. 29.
Every four years, a day is added to the calendar to match the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the sun. An extra day of rising early, indulging in too much caffeine, and squeezing into a packed subway car for daily grinders.
But while hourly workers will get more money in their paycheques for extra hours worked on leap day, their salaried counterparts won’t get paid at all.
That’s because salaried workers generally get paid a fixed amount per year and are not entitled to extra pay when the year has 366 days rather than 365, unless their employment contract states otherwise.
It’s clear that those who get paid every 15th and last day of the month won’t have the extra workday added to their paycheque this February.
This is more subtle for employees who are paid biweekly, as their total pay is spread out amongst the number of workdays, which vary every year. Still, with their overall pay being fixed, they are likely not getting paid when leap day falls on a workday.
An example of the ‘epidemic of wage theft’
To the Workers’ Action Centre, this an example of a much broader “epidemic of wage theft,” said Ella Bedard, the organization’s co-ordinator of workers’ rights.
“We see workers every day who are not getting paid their regular wages,” she said. “Not getting paid overtime, public holiday pay, vacation pay — all these employment entitlements.”
Salaried positions are often associated with coveted benefits like insured trips to massage therapists and dentists. But that isn’t always the case, said Bedard.
She highlights that these workers actually face a higher risk of being underpaid if their employers fail to keep track of hours worked.
The total number of salaried employees in Canada as of November 2023, including biweekly earners, was 6.5 million, or around 37 per cent of all employees in the country, according to Statistics Canada. These workers earned an average salary of $39.9 an hour, excluding overtime.
Assuming they work a standard eight-hour day, that means Canadian corporations could be pocketing more than $2 billion in compensation overall on leap years, while each individual worker loses $319.
That’s more than the average of a month’s worth of groceries per capita ($252.89 in August 2023), according to Canada’s Food Price Report in 2024. Or about 16 per cent of rent for a one-bedroom apartment, on a national average, according to a Rentals.ca report.
‘Every dollar matters, especially in Toronto’
Considering sky-high costs of living, it’s not an insignificant amount.
“Every dollar matters,” said Bedard, “especially in Toronto right now.”
Currently, there is no law establishing that salaried employees should get compensated or take a day off on leap day, says Teilen Celentano, employment lawyer at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP. It’s basically up to their boss to decide to do this, he said.
However, he believes that just like salaried workers don’t usually get their pay deducted for going to a doctor’s appointment during business hours, or for leaving early to pick up their kids from school, working on leap day can be seen as “a reasonable accommodation” employees need to make at work once every four years.
“A little give and take in any relationship is always a good thing,” he said.
Still, salaried employees on minimum wage, who often don’t get the same leniency from their employer, might even make less than minimum wage this year if they work on leap day.
This is something firms need to consider to ensure they are complying with provincial legislation, said Alan Price, CEO of BrightHR.
“A viable solution to this could be paying such employees for the extra hours worked or providing new employees with an annual wage slightly higher than minimum-wage requirements,” he said.
This article was reported by The Star
