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Statutory Holiday Pay, in plain English.
Workzoom defines Statutory Holiday Pay as follows. Statutory holiday pay is the wage an employee receives for a public holiday they do not work, set by provincial employment standards legislation. Most provinces calculate it from...
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The short answer
Statutory holiday pay is the wage an employee receives for a public holiday they do not work, set by provincial employment standards legislation. Most provinces calculate it from average earnings over a defined period before the holiday rather than from a standard day's pay. Employees who work the holiday are generally owed premium pay plus the holiday entitlement. Workzoom calculates the averaging window from actual pay history on the employee record.
How Statutory Holiday Pay works.
The calculation is an average, not a fixed day. Provinces define a lookback window of earnings and divide by a set number of days, which means the same employee can be owed different amounts for two holidays in the same year depending on the hours they worked before each one. Eligibility rules add another layer: several jurisdictions require the employee to have worked their scheduled shifts immediately before and after the holiday. Which holidays are statutory also varies by province, so a national employer runs different calendars simultaneously.
Where Statutory Holiday Pay goes wrong.
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Where Statutory Holiday Pay sits between HR and payroll.
Statutory Holiday Pay does not stand alone. The concepts most often paired with it on a Canada run are Vacation Pay, Overtime, Scheduling, Time and attendance. Each is defined elsewhere in this glossary so you can trace the full chain without leaving the site.
How Statutory Holiday Pay runs on Workzoom.
Statutory Holiday Pay is part of the Workzoom Payroll Suite. Workzoom runs HR, workforce, and talent on a single employee record across ten countries: Canada, the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, and the United Kingdom. Full gross-to-net payroll runs live in Canada, the United States, and the Bahamas. Pricing starts at $4 per employee per suite per month.
Questions about Statutory Holiday Pay
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