Employees are entitled to 20 working days of annual leave each year. They are paid during vacation, the size of which may vary from month to month due to the order in which they are calculated. The amount of vacation may be higher than the employee’s salary or lower, so you should choose carefully which month is the most financially rewarding vacation.
President of the Lithuanian Association of Accountants and Auditors Daiva Čibirienė explains that the amount of leave depends on the average number of working days in the last three months. According to her, the “good” and “bad” months change every year, because the number of working days per month is different.
She gives some examples of when it is better to leave next year for an employee whose salary increases from the new year and for an employee who earns the same salary.
If from 2022 an employee’s salary is increased, for such a person it is better not to take leave for the first three months of the year – January, February and March – because he will receive less than he earns.
“If the salary has changed since the new ones, the red months are immediately January, February and March. Last year fell short of their holiday average. It would be bad for January, because then the average would be calculated from December, November and October, when the salary was lower, the price of the holiday day automatically drops.
February is usually a bad month, so a poor average would be used to calculate the holidays, and if the salary went up, it would be a tragedy altogether. March is half-bad, because if a person is on holiday in March, then we calculate his average in January and February, when the salary has already been increased, but December is falling with a lower salary, which can have a negative effect. Therefore, in the first three months, it is better for employees whose salaries increase by 5-10% not to take leave if they want to get more, ”explains D. Čibirienė.
According to her, the worst month for holidays next year is February.
“If an employee’s salary is fixed and does not change (we are talking about employees who earn more than the minimum wage, ie 730 euros and more), the worst holiday month is traditionally February, because he has the fewest working days.
Then the price of one working day is the highest. That expensive working day is replaced by a cheap holiday, because the holiday is calculated from the average wage, when there were more working days, and the salary is the same, which results in a lower average, ”the interlocutor notes.
If a worker’s salary is, say, € 1,500 on paper, he would lose as much as € 75 on paper if he took 10 working days off in February. If the same employee were on leave in May 2022, his salary on paper would be 56 euros higher.
“We see big scissors from 75 euros (lost money – Delphi) up to € 56 (more than earns Delphi). This is the scissors of a salary of almost 100 euros “on paper” “, D. Čibirienė calculates.
According to the accountant’s representative, annual bonuses, which are usually paid at the end of the year or at the beginning of the year, have almost no effect on holidays.
“One-fourth of the annual supplement is taken throughout the year, and all holidays are taken, so it doesn’t matter when you go on holiday. The annual supplement will not increase the salary if it falls within the three-month interval, it will increase it by only a quarter and will run throughout the year. Will you go on holiday in May, September or October, and if you received the annual supplement in January, it will be assessed, ”notes D. Čibirienė.
Daiva Čibirienė
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However, if employees receive a one-time bonus for their performance, it is important in deciding when to go on vacation.
“If you received a bonus last month, it would be good to go on holiday this month, because the bonus will be included in the calculation and the holidays will be higher. For example, if a person has received additional remuneration for overtime, work on weekends, during holidays, work in harmful conditions, ”she says.
The President of the Lithuanian Association of Accountants and Auditors reminds that downtime is not taken into account in the calculation of holidays.
“If a person has been in downtime for a whole month and has been paid the minimum monthly salary for that, the downtime is not assessed and the month is taken as empty. His holiday will then be calculated on the basis of an average of two months. If all days in that month were downtime and only one business day, it will be used for the average. Thus, the employee does not suffer from downtime, ”notes D. Čibirienė, adding that the same applies to sickness benefits or incapacity for work.
However, she points out that problems can arise in some cases.
“If there has been downtime or incapacity for work for three months, and there is no working day in the range of the months from which the average is to be calculated, then there will be problems because the average is calculated from the salary specified in the contract. It is often lower because in the course of the employee receives bonuses, there are overtime, then it can suffer. It would take at least a month to work out what to calculate, ”says the interviewee.
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