Holiday entitlements for newly graduated students
14 Oct 2019
In September and October, the majority of the students who graduated just before summer will enter the professional world. Their first months as employees will be characterised by a host of new impressions, challenges and hard work, all of which should preferably be counterbalanced with some well-deserved days off work. However, do newly graduated students enjoy full holiday entitlements when they first start working?
Holiday year versus holiday service year
In Belgium, the legal holiday entitlement of an employee for a given year (the holiday year) is calculated on the basis of the days the employee concerned actually worked during the preceding calendar year (the holiday service year). As such, an employee will be entitled to the full amount of legal holidays (20 days per year in a 5-day working week) if he worked full-time during the preceding calendar year.
This means that, when a newly graduated student starts his first professional activities in the months following his graduation - e.g. in October of 2019 - he won’t be entitled to any legal holidays in 2019 because he didn’t work in the holiday service year (i.e. 2018). In the year after his graduation - in our example, 2020 - the employee will not enjoy a full holiday entitlement either, due to an incomplete holiday service year (i.e. 2019).
In order to still enjoy some well-deserved days off work from time to time, employees who find themselves in this situation can make use of two different systems: youth leave and supplementary leave (also referred to as “European holiday”).
Year of graduation
As mentioned above, in principle, a newly graduated student who starts his first professional activities in the months following graduation won’t be entitled to any days off in that year because he didn’t work in the holiday service year (i.e. the preceding calendar year).
In such a situation, the Belgian system of supplementary leave can be useful. This system is applicable to employees who don’t enjoy full holiday entitlements because they only just started their career (or returned to work after a long period of inactivity) and as such did not work a complete holiday service year.
The system of supplementary leave requires an initial run-in period of 3 months’ work before the employee can enjoy any leave. As from the last week of this 3-month period, white-collar workers will be entitled to 5 days off (in a 5-day work week). Specific provisions exist for blue-collar workers, but we’ll only discuss the system of supplementary leave for white-collar workers in this article.
After the 3-month run-in period, the employee will accrue supplementary leave entitlement incrementally, at a rate of 2 days/month worked (in a 6-day work week, to be prorated in the case of a 5-day work week). The supplementary leave entitlement accrued during any given calendar year has to be taken up before 31 December of that year. An employee can use the system of supplementary leave until the end of the year following the year in which he started his professional activities.
The employee will receive his normal salary during the days of supplementary leave. However, these amounts will be subtracted from the employee’s double holiday pay in the next calendar year. As such, the employee in fact pre-finances his own supplementary leave. Note also that days of supplementary leave taken up during a given calendar year will be considered as days worked when the individual’s legal holiday entitlement for the next calendar year is determined.
In our example above - the newly graduated student who started working on 1 October 2019 in a 5-day work week -, the employee’s run-in period will span the months of October, November and December 2019 and so he will be entitled to 5 days of supplementary leave in the last week of December 2019.
First calendar year following the year of graduation
During the first calendar year following the year of graduation, in principle, the employee will already be entitled to a number of legal holidays on the basis of the labour performed during the preceding calendar year. Our student who started working on 1 October 2019 will as such be entitled to 5 legal holidays in 2020.
In addition, the employee will be entitled to youth leave during the first calendar year following the year of graduation if he:
didn’t reach the age of 25 by 31 December in the year of graduation, which is the holiday service year;
completed his studies in the course of the holiday service year; and
after having completed his studies, was a party to an employment agreement for at least 1 month and worked at least 13 days as an employee during the holiday service year.
A young employee who meets the above conditions can be entitled to a maximum of 20 days of youth leave (in a 5-day work week) in the year following the year in which he started working. However, the number of legal holidays the employee is entitled to - if any - must be subtracted from these 20 days of youth leave and moreover be taken up before any youth leave can be taken up. For the employee’s days off under the system of youth leave, no salary is due by the employer. The employee will, however, be entitled to a lump-sum compensation paid by the National Employment Office for these days. Note also that days of youth leave will be considered as days actually worked in the holiday service year when the employee’s holiday entitlement for the next year is determined.
If an employee is not entitled to youth leave - e.g. because he was over 25 years old on 31 December of the preceding calendar year -, he can use the system of supplementary leave. As mentioned above, after a 3 month run-in period, the employee will accrue supplementary leave entitlement incrementally, at a rate of 2 days/month worked (in a 6-day work week, to be prorated in the case of a 5-day work week). As with youth leave, the number of supplementary leave days the employee can actually claim must be reduced by the number of any days of legal holiday not yet taken up or pencilled in. Moreover, the employee must effectively take up his legal holidays before he can take up any supplementary leave days.
The two systems - supplementary leave and youth leave - can, however, not be combined.
Remark: unpaid leave
If an employee wants to supplement the number of days of legal holiday he is entitled to, there’s also a possibility to take up days of unpaid leave. Contrary to the systems of supplementary leave and youth leave, however, an employee cannot ‘simply’ claim unpaid leave; the employer can freely choose whether or not to accommodate an employee’s request for unpaid leave. In addition, it’s important for an employee to keep in mind that days of unpaid leave can have an impact beyond the mere loss of salary for these days. For example, days of unpaid leave will - again contrary to days of supplementary leave or youth leave - not be taken into account when the employee’s legal holiday entitlement for the next calendar year is determined.
Key takeaway
Although newly graduated students who start their professional career in the year they graduate will only accrue full legal holiday entitlements as from the second calendar year following the year of graduation, various possibilities exist to make sure that these employees can enjoy a minimum of 20 days off per full calendar year.
If you have any further questions on the holiday entitlements of your younger employees, don’t hesitate to contact the PwC Legal Employment law team.
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