public holidays - payment

The payment that an employee receives for a public holiday depends on the following factors:

• would the employee have normally worked on the public holiday?;
• what would the employee normally have been paid for that day?; and
• does the employee actually work on the public holiday?

Our Holidays Online Tool (http://www.ers.govt.nz/holidays-online-tool/default.aspx) makes it easy to work out what pay and leave an employee is entitled to on public holidays. You can also use it to work out sick and bereavement leave entitlements. Make sure you have payroll information or a payslip handy when you use the tool.

Payment for public holidays – where an employee does not work

If an employee has a day off on a public holidays they are paid for that day if it is “otherwise a working day”.

The employee is paid as if she or he had worked as normal on the day (see fact sheet: Calculating “relevant daily pay”). For employees working a regular pattern of hours the pay cycle continues unchanged.

The employee is not entitled to the payment of at least time and a half which the Act requires to be paid to employees who work on the public holiday.

An employee who does not normally work on the day in question and who does not work is not entitled to a payment for the day. For example, a part-time employee who never works Friday has no entitlement to a payment for Good Friday.

Payment for public holidays – where an employee works

If an employee works on any public holiday, that work now attracts payment of at least time and a half for the time they actually work on a public holiday. Such an employee is entitled to the greater of:

• relevant daily pay less any penal rates plus half that amount again, or
• relevant daily pay including any penal rates

Penal rates are additional amounts in an employment agreement to compensate an employee working on a particular day of the week (usually Saturdays or Sundays) or a public holiday.

Where the employee is working a shift that includes some time on the public holiday, only the time actually worked on the public holiday attracts payment of at least time and a half: the balance of the time worked may be paid at the normal rate of pay.

Where the person is specifically employed only to work on public holidays (for example, an employee who is only employed to work at the racetrack for the Waitangi Day meeting), they must still be paid at least time and a half.