The allocation of holiday pay
July 2021 – Employees build up their holiday pay in the year before their holidays. If they change employer, this holiday pay must be paid. The rules for charging this holiday pay to the new employer are about to change.
Charging
When an employee changes employer, he or she will receive the holiday pay that he or she has built-up up to that date directly (this is the exit holiday pay). The employee also receives a holiday certificate which he/she must hand over to the new employer.
The new employer will have to take the holiday pay into account when the employee takes his or her holiday, when paying the simple holiday pay. Until now, the instructions to employers (the instructions of the NSSO administration) stated that this deduction should be made at the same time as the employee takes his/her main holiday.
The FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue (FPS ETCS for short) has now made it known that the new employer must, in order to determine the simple holiday pay, deduct the exit holiday pay in proportion to the number of holiday days taken (NSSO administrative instructions - 2021/1).
Higher remuneration
If the remuneration that the employee receives from his new employer is higher than the remuneration he received from his former employer, the new employer must make a calculation each time the employee takes holiday days in order to supplement the holiday pay for these days up to the amount of the simple holiday pay to which the worker is entitled.
In this respect, the administration gives the following example.
The employee has a holiday certificate for 2020 (full year): simple holiday pay of 1 917,50 euros.
That is 1 917,50 euros/20 = 95,875 euros per day of holiday (it is assumed that the employee is entitled to 20 days of holiday).
In April 2021, the employee takes five days' holiday.
The worker's monthly pay at the new employer is 3 000 euros per month.
Simple holiday allowance :
• pay code (12): 5/20 x 1 917,50 euros = 479,38 euros ;
• remuneration code (1) : (5/22 x 3 000) euros – 479,38 euros = 202,44 euros.
Ordinary days for the month of April :
• remuneration code (1): 17/22 x 3 000 euros = 2 318,18 euros.
