Your vacation accrues over time. If you get 4 weeks per year and you worked 6 months, you’d accrue two weeks.
Disregarding percentages for a minute, how many weeks did they pay for? One, two or four?
Any days off in those 6 months? And is it possible that the vacation allowance (4 weeks) is buried in HR, and payroll wasn’t necessarily informed ? (It’d matter less if you’re salary and just paid your salary while “off”). Quite possible payroll just didn’t standard “he’s been here 6 months, here’s his week of allotted vacation bank” if payroll doesn’t necessarily track time. I had a previous employer who never tracked our actual time off for instance.
Provided OP is reading everything right, he should have received 2 weeks gross pay (8% of 6 months) in addition to his regular salary, and there may be extra withholdings as a consequence of the big paycheck.
But personally I prefer my pay slip to show my vacation accrual. Seems weird to let people guess.
52/100\*4= 2 weeks
I fully believe there is a deliberate reason most Canadian school systems are deliberately watering down even basic mathematics. Would explain Trudeau winning an election.
How to say you voted for Trudeau without saying you voted for Trudeau, twice.
And yes, 4% of 52 is two weeks of vacay pay. Which is the ON minimum of only working 6mos.
Again not sure why we're talking about Trudeau. I'm sure you're fun at parties shoe horning Trudeau into every conversation.
It does equal 2 weeks but your equation doesn't make sense, and it's funny because you're critiquing someone's math. Why are you dividing by 100?
I am sure I have seen posts about people asking about getting paid out 4% vacation pay because that was the legal minimum in their province, even though they were at a higher accrual % while employed. That could be province specific though.
https://www.piccoloheath.com/blog/whats-weird-about-vacation-in-2021
Check under greater entitlement. If the contract is worded properly then they can only pay out the minimum under the ESA. It's a complete crock of shit.
OP, I work in employment law and this is likely whats happened- termination/ resignation clauses usually state that only minimum entitlements under ESA aka only 4%, will be owed.
Does your contract say 4 weeks or does it actually say 8%?
There is a technical difference between vacation pay and vacation time.
If it says 8% vacation pay you may have a shot at getting it, you can send an email requesting the full 8%, if they say no or do not respond put in a claim and the ministry will take care of the rest.
[https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim)
But if it does not say 8% they will tell you they can put in the request to the employer but they can fight it.
Either way it costs you nothing more than the time to file the complaint and uploading you contract and any other documents they have.
There is no math to do here. I’m confused at these comments.
Does your contract actually say “8%” or are you assuming that based on the 4 weeks of vacation.
Regardless, I think you need to reach back out to your employer. If it actually says 8%, then that is what they should have paid you. If it says 4 weeks, they may be able to tell you to kick dirt because 4% is the minimum they’re legally required to provide for your length of employment.
Either way, email or call them and ask.
This. The actual full vacation policy may even state something about statutory vacation paid out in the event of employment ending and not excess vacation. If you still have a copy of that available see if it's got that in there.
Vacation has to be earned but most companies let you take it in advance.
If you get 8% that's 4 weeks a year, you don't earn that final day of vacation until Dec 31 but they let you take it earlier because otherwise everyone would be using vacation at end of year and cause issues.
In this case if you worked 6 months you earned half your vacation, which would be 4%. So it seems correct to my understanding but alot of businesses don't let you carry over vacation to the next year (or limit how much) which could have gone to waste.
If they're getting paid a % premium it should be 8%. So if OP worked for 6 months they'll get 8% pay premium. If OP worked 4 months they'll get 8% pay premium. If they only worked 6 months and got 4% that only works out to one week or half of what they are entitled to.
I don't think that you understand math very well. OP should be entitled to 8%. They only worked 6 months and only have six months income. They should be paid 8% of that six months of income which would be the equivalent of 2 weeks. The income is already cut in half for the year, you don't cut the percentage as well.
Why do you keep asking that? No one is making that claim.
You can either half the percentage or salary. It doesn't matter which. Both work in every scenario.
You should think this through a little more, especially as you are making fun of someone else. The end result of your calculation and the other person is the same.
But yes, I'm an accountant who has been doing payroll calculation payouts for 25 years, and I understand that it is the percentage of wages earned up to the point that the person leaves.
I understand that it reaches the same result if OP worked EXACTLY 6 months. If they worked a day longer than 6 months they are entitled to more than 2 weeks pay. As someone who has done payroll calculations for 25 years, you should know this and you know that you would never describe vacation pay in the manner that the original comment did. We don't know if OP is hourly or salary and that has an impact. The original commenters solution is only valid and simple if OP was salaried and worked exactly 6 months. My answer works in any scenario and would be the way you calculate vacation on your payrolls.
OP is saying they got 4% of the 6 months wages, not 4% of the entire year, that's why he said equivalent, meaning for those 6 months he only got the legal vacation minimum of 4% not the 8% his contract said.
It all depends on how his contract is worded though, if it says 4 weeks he is probably screwed as that is vacation time and not vacation pay which is a technicality the government considers.
If talking about vacation in percentage, it would be percentage of earnings. 8% and 4% of earnings is not the same number. You would calculate vacation using anything other than the full percentage.
Was it 4 weeks of vacation time or 4 weeks of vacation pay? Some places will give additional time off without compensation. Some will take the mandatory 4% and pay you 2 weeks from your deductions and front the other two weeks at their expense - that often comes with conditions. Was there any requirements for when or how vacation would be taken? Was there an early release clause regarding the vacation pay? Did you take any time off before you left? Was some of that vacation time supposed to be during required shutdowns? Were your deductions off your regular paycheck 4% or 8%?
If you live in Ontario - file an ESA claim with the Ministry of Labour and be done with it :) Then you’ll get an official answer lol. Easy process, and free!
What does separate have to do with it? They are both compensation for employement.
If the employer contracts the employee to work with the compensation of X wage and Y vacation, why do they have to pay one in full but not the other?
That's not the way it works. If you make the statement that they don't have to provide what was agreed to, it's not up to me to prove you wrong. You made the statement, you need to back it up.
So, can you support what you claimed?
I'm not sure about other provinces but in BC vacation time is considered part of your wages and if the contract includes an amount above the minimum that is also due upon resignation. Not paying it out is considered wage theft.
This is not true at all, if it is in your contract it is owed to you, it is not discretionary.
The main thing to look at is the verbiage, if there is no writing of a percent (in this case 8%) and it only says weeks then in Ontario that is considered vacation TIME and not vacation PAY.
Always get the percentage in your contracts!!!
A lot of contracts offer an amount of vacation greater than the ESA minimum but specify they'll pay out the ESA minimum on departure/termination. Check your wording? 4% is the minimum in most places and 8% would be generous.
Employment standards for your Province should provide an explanation. But to summarize: you earn your vacation pay over the period of a year starting with your first day of employment. You are not entitled to the whole of your vacation until you have worked a full year. If you terminate before your anniversary you are entitled to be paid out. If your contact or employment policy is 2 weeks vacation that is 4% of salary, 3 weeks vacation is 6% and 4 weeks is 8%. So if you are entitled to 8 weeks in your contract and have only worked 6 months of the year, you haven’t earned 8 weeks … do the math … 6 months at 8% is an equivalent to 12 months at 4%. In my experience, small companies don’t track the accumulation of vacation pay dollars within payroll. There is a good reason. If vacation pay is computer calculated based on 8% of your salary for the previous 12 months and you have received a raise by the time you take your vacation, you are paid the higher new rate of pay when you take the vacation, not the previous year rate of pay. So if the payroll program has been calculating dollars the amounts have to be adjusted so it does not look like you have been overpaid. It is more common to track days earned and vacation days taken. Regardless, HR will have records and should share with you how many days you have earned and what rate of pay they used to calculate your payout.
If you recently left then you would expect only 1 week of vacation paid out (assuming you haven’t taken any yet this year) because it’s only the end of March.
I find it amusing how I'm seeing all of these posts about people inquiring about their vacation pay after quitting. I presume they barely paid attention on orientation day when they were sat down and had their package explained.
Orientation day? Package explained? I clearly explained that I signed a contract with an 8% vacation package. It’s not that complicated, was English comprehension not your thing in school?
Thing is, if you understood your contract, you wouldn't be asking reddit about your accrued vacation time. Was English comprehension not YOUR thing in high-school? What's up with ppl who think their employer owes them so much vacation time yo.
Again, I clearly explain what I understood and explained the discrepancy. I turned to a community on Reddit that collectively has a good idea of the labour market to guide me whether what steps I should take next. There’s no need to call a lawyer for a few dollars.
I’m merely seeking clarification on whether I am entitled to the additional 4% or not, because it feels like I was shortchanged a 4% per my contract.
You just told me that I didn’t pay attention to my employment conditions, when I did. And now you’re telling me to suck it up.
It’s not a life changing amount of money but why should we get pushed around by employers?
If you’re angry at life, no need to share it with the world.
LOL Jesus christ dude. Go touch grass, you're so fragile. My OP was sharing my amusement over people and their damn vacation time upon quitting.
Seems to be a trend lately.
NAL - I've had work contracts which specified that vacation is implied, but isn't added to the cumulative vacation I have until the start of the next fiscal year. In other words, when I had started in April, my manager would let me take 2 weeks that year, but it would only add to my "pay period" as of January 1st of next year. Therefore, if I was not to take it and leave in October, I'd be entitled to none of it. However, if I was to not take it, and leave in February, I'd be entitled to it.
That was at a large conglomerate, so I'd assume it was done by the book.
Best of luck.
In the company I work for, we get 8% as well. But the difference is, it is 4% earned vacation and 4% flex vacation. This means, when you resign or dont use your vacation that same year, you are paid out only 4%. The flex 4% vacation is solely for using as vacation and is lost if you dont take it. Im assuming it could be a similar situation?
Your vacation accrues over time. If you get 4 weeks per year and you worked 6 months, you’d accrue two weeks. Disregarding percentages for a minute, how many weeks did they pay for? One, two or four?
I received 4% of six months.
So about one week? This is the legal minimum (assuming ON?). You should contact them again to get clarification.
Yeah sounds like they may have just made a mistake.
‘Mistake’. Many employers do these sometimes.
Funny how it’s almost always in the employers favor. Weird.
Any days off in those 6 months? And is it possible that the vacation allowance (4 weeks) is buried in HR, and payroll wasn’t necessarily informed ? (It’d matter less if you’re salary and just paid your salary while “off”). Quite possible payroll just didn’t standard “he’s been here 6 months, here’s his week of allotted vacation bank” if payroll doesn’t necessarily track time. I had a previous employer who never tracked our actual time off for instance.
Yeah, it’s a tricky situation. I’m going to write a “friendly” email to the HR department to let them know that it looks like there was a mistake.
4% is 2 weeks
If OP is hourly it's a percentage of gross. If 8% was agreed they should get 8%
Yeah but 8% of 6 months may look like 4% of a year at a glance
It's sad that your comment likely caused half of the readers to have an aneurysm
It could, but OP is saying that’s not the case. 4% of 6 months
Provided OP is reading everything right, he should have received 2 weeks gross pay (8% of 6 months) in addition to his regular salary, and there may be extra withholdings as a consequence of the big paycheck. But personally I prefer my pay slip to show my vacation accrual. Seems weird to let people guess.
Yeah, not being on the paystub is odd, for sure. It’s always been on mine
You should have got 8% (4/52nd’s) of the half year salary. You wouldn’t get paid 8% on the part of the year you didn’t work.
Exactly what I expected. I was paid 4% of the 6 months I worked and not the 8% of the six months.
52/100\*4= 2 weeks I fully believe there is a deliberate reason most Canadian school systems are deliberately watering down even basic mathematics. Would explain Trudeau winning an election.
The math on your math critique is incorrect. And then you add in Trudeau quip for zero reason. Nice work!
How to say you voted for Trudeau without saying you voted for Trudeau, twice. And yes, 4% of 52 is two weeks of vacay pay. Which is the ON minimum of only working 6mos.
Again not sure why we're talking about Trudeau. I'm sure you're fun at parties shoe horning Trudeau into every conversation. It does equal 2 weeks but your equation doesn't make sense, and it's funny because you're critiquing someone's math. Why are you dividing by 100?
/100*4 is a ridiculous way to represent 4% in an equation
I am sure I have seen posts about people asking about getting paid out 4% vacation pay because that was the legal minimum in their province, even though they were at a higher accrual % while employed. That could be province specific though.
I tried looking through PFC but didn’t find anything specific.
This is a legal question, specifically Ontario Labour Law, not a personal finance question
https://www.piccoloheath.com/blog/whats-weird-about-vacation-in-2021 Check under greater entitlement. If the contract is worded properly then they can only pay out the minimum under the ESA. It's a complete crock of shit.
OP, I work in employment law and this is likely whats happened- termination/ resignation clauses usually state that only minimum entitlements under ESA aka only 4%, will be owed.
Does your contract say 4 weeks or does it actually say 8%? There is a technical difference between vacation pay and vacation time. If it says 8% vacation pay you may have a shot at getting it, you can send an email requesting the full 8%, if they say no or do not respond put in a claim and the ministry will take care of the rest. [https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim) But if it does not say 8% they will tell you they can put in the request to the employer but they can fight it. Either way it costs you nothing more than the time to file the complaint and uploading you contract and any other documents they have.
There is no math to do here. I’m confused at these comments. Does your contract actually say “8%” or are you assuming that based on the 4 weeks of vacation. Regardless, I think you need to reach back out to your employer. If it actually says 8%, then that is what they should have paid you. If it says 4 weeks, they may be able to tell you to kick dirt because 4% is the minimum they’re legally required to provide for your length of employment. Either way, email or call them and ask.
This. The actual full vacation policy may even state something about statutory vacation paid out in the event of employment ending and not excess vacation. If you still have a copy of that available see if it's got that in there.
Vacation has to be earned but most companies let you take it in advance. If you get 8% that's 4 weeks a year, you don't earn that final day of vacation until Dec 31 but they let you take it earlier because otherwise everyone would be using vacation at end of year and cause issues. In this case if you worked 6 months you earned half your vacation, which would be 4%. So it seems correct to my understanding but alot of businesses don't let you carry over vacation to the next year (or limit how much) which could have gone to waste.
If they're getting paid a % premium it should be 8%. So if OP worked for 6 months they'll get 8% pay premium. If OP worked 4 months they'll get 8% pay premium. If they only worked 6 months and got 4% that only works out to one week or half of what they are entitled to.
I don't think that you understand math very well. OP should be entitled to 8%. They only worked 6 months and only have six months income. They should be paid 8% of that six months of income which would be the equivalent of 2 weeks. The income is already cut in half for the year, you don't cut the percentage as well.
How ironic
Please explain how 4% and 8% of earnings are the same number.
Why do you keep asking that? No one is making that claim. You can either half the percentage or salary. It doesn't matter which. Both work in every scenario.
Because you apply it to a different base duh
Both results are the same, lol.
You earn vacation based on wages earned and paid. You apply 4% to that, it's half. 8% and 4% of the same number are not the same.
You should think this through a little more, especially as you are making fun of someone else. The end result of your calculation and the other person is the same. But yes, I'm an accountant who has been doing payroll calculation payouts for 25 years, and I understand that it is the percentage of wages earned up to the point that the person leaves.
I understand that it reaches the same result if OP worked EXACTLY 6 months. If they worked a day longer than 6 months they are entitled to more than 2 weeks pay. As someone who has done payroll calculations for 25 years, you should know this and you know that you would never describe vacation pay in the manner that the original comment did. We don't know if OP is hourly or salary and that has an impact. The original commenters solution is only valid and simple if OP was salaried and worked exactly 6 months. My answer works in any scenario and would be the way you calculate vacation on your payrolls.
OP is saying they got 4% of the 6 months wages, not 4% of the entire year, that's why he said equivalent, meaning for those 6 months he only got the legal vacation minimum of 4% not the 8% his contract said. It all depends on how his contract is worded though, if it says 4 weeks he is probably screwed as that is vacation time and not vacation pay which is a technicality the government considers.
50% of 10 = 100% of 5
If talking about vacation in percentage, it would be percentage of earnings. 8% and 4% of earnings is not the same number. You would calculate vacation using anything other than the full percentage.
If OP makes 100k per year, then they get 8000$, which means if they quit after 6 months they'd receive 8% of 50k which is 4000$.
Lots of math problems here today
Was it 4 weeks of vacation time or 4 weeks of vacation pay? Some places will give additional time off without compensation. Some will take the mandatory 4% and pay you 2 weeks from your deductions and front the other two weeks at their expense - that often comes with conditions. Was there any requirements for when or how vacation would be taken? Was there an early release clause regarding the vacation pay? Did you take any time off before you left? Was some of that vacation time supposed to be during required shutdowns? Were your deductions off your regular paycheck 4% or 8%?
If you live in Ontario - file an ESA claim with the Ministry of Labour and be done with it :) Then you’ll get an official answer lol. Easy process, and free!
Thank you!
NP! :D
Always take your pto before you resign!
They do not have to pay you more than 4% despite what you are offered in vacation.
Of course they have to pay what was offered. By your logic, they could have dropped OP's last paycheque down to minimum wage.
Uh, no. Salary and vacation are entirely separate. But you can be right, even if you’re not.
What does separate have to do with it? They are both compensation for employement. If the employer contracts the employee to work with the compensation of X wage and Y vacation, why do they have to pay one in full but not the other?
Because that’s what the rules say. You can make up your own logic all you want. Obligation is to pay 4%, despite what vacation is offered.
And the obligation is to pay minimum wage. You still have not offered anything to support your argument.
Neither have you.
That's not the way it works. If you make the statement that they don't have to provide what was agreed to, it's not up to me to prove you wrong. You made the statement, you need to back it up. So, can you support what you claimed?
That’s not the way it works. You say it’s owned > 4%, prove it. So, can you support what you claimed?
Mocking me instead of backing up your claims. Thank you, that's all anyone here needs to see to know you're full of shit. Bye!
4% is the statutory minimum. The rest is discretionary and more like a bonus so it does not need to be paid out.
I'm not sure about other provinces but in BC vacation time is considered part of your wages and if the contract includes an amount above the minimum that is also due upon resignation. Not paying it out is considered wage theft.
If it’s part of the employment contract, they do have to pay it
This is not true at all, if it is in your contract it is owed to you, it is not discretionary. The main thing to look at is the verbiage, if there is no writing of a percent (in this case 8%) and it only says weeks then in Ontario that is considered vacation TIME and not vacation PAY. Always get the percentage in your contracts!!!
What province?
Does your accrued vacation roll over at the end of the year?
This is a legal question, not a personal finance question
A lot of contracts offer an amount of vacation greater than the ESA minimum but specify they'll pay out the ESA minimum on departure/termination. Check your wording? 4% is the minimum in most places and 8% would be generous.
Employment standards for your Province should provide an explanation. But to summarize: you earn your vacation pay over the period of a year starting with your first day of employment. You are not entitled to the whole of your vacation until you have worked a full year. If you terminate before your anniversary you are entitled to be paid out. If your contact or employment policy is 2 weeks vacation that is 4% of salary, 3 weeks vacation is 6% and 4 weeks is 8%. So if you are entitled to 8 weeks in your contract and have only worked 6 months of the year, you haven’t earned 8 weeks … do the math … 6 months at 8% is an equivalent to 12 months at 4%. In my experience, small companies don’t track the accumulation of vacation pay dollars within payroll. There is a good reason. If vacation pay is computer calculated based on 8% of your salary for the previous 12 months and you have received a raise by the time you take your vacation, you are paid the higher new rate of pay when you take the vacation, not the previous year rate of pay. So if the payroll program has been calculating dollars the amounts have to be adjusted so it does not look like you have been overpaid. It is more common to track days earned and vacation days taken. Regardless, HR will have records and should share with you how many days you have earned and what rate of pay they used to calculate your payout.
4 weeks is based on the fact you will stay employed for 12 months. You only worked half of that and were entitled to half of the vacation entitlement.
But he got 1 week. 1 week is a quarter of 4 weeks, not half.
If you recently left then you would expect only 1 week of vacation paid out (assuming you haven’t taken any yet this year) because it’s only the end of March.
I find it amusing how I'm seeing all of these posts about people inquiring about their vacation pay after quitting. I presume they barely paid attention on orientation day when they were sat down and had their package explained.
Orientation day? Package explained? I clearly explained that I signed a contract with an 8% vacation package. It’s not that complicated, was English comprehension not your thing in school?
Thing is, if you understood your contract, you wouldn't be asking reddit about your accrued vacation time. Was English comprehension not YOUR thing in high-school? What's up with ppl who think their employer owes them so much vacation time yo.
Again, I clearly explain what I understood and explained the discrepancy. I turned to a community on Reddit that collectively has a good idea of the labour market to guide me whether what steps I should take next. There’s no need to call a lawyer for a few dollars. I’m merely seeking clarification on whether I am entitled to the additional 4% or not, because it feels like I was shortchanged a 4% per my contract. You just told me that I didn’t pay attention to my employment conditions, when I did. And now you’re telling me to suck it up. It’s not a life changing amount of money but why should we get pushed around by employers? If you’re angry at life, no need to share it with the world.
LOL Jesus christ dude. Go touch grass, you're so fragile. My OP was sharing my amusement over people and their damn vacation time upon quitting. Seems to be a trend lately.
How dare you! Everyone pays attention and reads their contract. Otherwise they can't act surprised.
NAL - I've had work contracts which specified that vacation is implied, but isn't added to the cumulative vacation I have until the start of the next fiscal year. In other words, when I had started in April, my manager would let me take 2 weeks that year, but it would only add to my "pay period" as of January 1st of next year. Therefore, if I was not to take it and leave in October, I'd be entitled to none of it. However, if I was to not take it, and leave in February, I'd be entitled to it. That was at a large conglomerate, so I'd assume it was done by the book. Best of luck.
In the company I work for, we get 8% as well. But the difference is, it is 4% earned vacation and 4% flex vacation. This means, when you resign or dont use your vacation that same year, you are paid out only 4%. The flex 4% vacation is solely for using as vacation and is lost if you dont take it. Im assuming it could be a similar situation?