Leave Requirements In South Africa

In an effort to mitigate the effect of the no-work-no-pay principle, some employers have, however, continued to pay their employees’ salaries, or a portion thereof, or are requiring employees to take their annual leave.

The following are the ground rules:

  • Employees who work for 24 hours or more a month for the same employer may take annual leave.
  • Every employee is entitled to 21 consecutive days annual leave on full pay in every leave cycle.  This equates to 15 working days per annum if the employee works a five-day week, and 18 working days per annum if the employee works a six-day week.
  • A “leave cycle” means a period of 12 months commencing from the first day of employment or commencing from the end of the previous leave cycle.
  • Whatever number of normal working days falls within that, 21 consecutive days is the number of working days that the employee must be paid for.
  • Employers may not pay workers instead of granting leave, except on termination of employment.
  • Public holidays are not counted as leave.
  • Annual leave is accrued – meaning that the number of days to which the employee is entitled starts at zero and increases with the passage of time as the leave cycle progresses. Therefore, at the start of the leave cycle the employee would have zero days leave due to him/her.
  • There are two methods of calculating the accrual of annual leave as the leave cycle progresses.  The first may only be applied with the prior agreement of the employee: On the 17th day of the leave cycle, the employee would have accrued one day leave. It should be noted that this method of accrual may only be applied by agreement with the employee. On the passage of every 17 days after that, another one-day annual leave accrues to the employee’s benefit.
  • If there is no other agreement with the employee, then the accrual is allowed at 1, 25 days per month in the case of a five-day week worker, or 1, 5 days per month for a six-day week worker and so on.  No employee agreement is required to apply this method of accrual.
  • Annual leave may only be taken by agreement between the employer and employee.
  • In the absence of any such agreement, annual leave must be taken at a time to suit the employer. This means that the employer is entitled to have a policy stating that a certain period will be regarded as a shutdown period, and employees are required to take annual leave for the period of closure.

Sick Leave in South Africa

The South African Department of Labour sets the number of sick leave days, and they use an unusual formula as follows:

  • Sick leave totals the number of days an employee would work in a 6-week period (30 days), and that is the total amount available to use over three years.
  • The full amount is only available after 6 months of employment, and prior to that the employee only accrues one day of sick leave for every 26 days worked.
  • Any sick days taken during the first 6 months would be deducted from the 30-day/3 year total.

Our client wanted to only give 15 days of sick leave to the employee based on his home contract, but that would not be enough to meet the minimums after six months, so we advised them on the South African rules to be compliant.

Holiday Leave in South Africa

Holiday leave in South Africa is accrued at the minimum rate of 1.25 days per month of employment, which equals 15 days per year.  Those days are not offered upfront and can only be taken as they accrue, so the employee starts at zero and accumulates leave time during the year.

Our client wanted to offer their employee 20 days per year, so we advised them that they could do so and use the accrual method rather than offering the leave up front.  This would mean that 1.667 days would accrue during each month of employment.

The client also wanted to know if unused leave was ‘rolled over’ into the following year, or did it have to be taken in the year it was accrued.  There is no statutory rule on this, so we advised them it was their choice, as long as the employee was given an opportunity to use the leave. 

We suggested they could use a ‘truncation rule’ for unused leave, which would mean the employee has up to six months to use it after their employment anniversary.  After that, they would lose it permanently.

What is the minimum leave per year in South Africa?

The BCEA provides that an employee is entitled to a minimum of 21 consecutive days’ paid annual leave (about 15 working days) in respect of each annual leave cycle, being a period of 12 months’ employment with the same employer.

Is study leave compulsory in South Africa?

Very simply, in labour legislation there is no such thing as study leave – it does not exist. Therefore, if the employee has such a requirement, he must apply for paid annual leave in accordance with the employer’s annual leave policy.

How many days family responsibility leave do you get in South Africa?

3 days, How many days do you get for family responsibility leave? Each year, employees in a given company are allowed a maximum of 3 days.