Starting at the beginning of 2022, BC will be the first province to have 5 days of paid sick leave for most provincially-regulated workers!

Presently, about 1 million BC workers have no sick leave with their employer. Most of those are workers in low-wage jobs, who are more often women or racialized workers.This pandemic has shown the need for workers to have sick leave, so they can stay home when they are sick without the fear of losing wages.

Because of this, earlier this year, the government announced that permanent paid sick leave would be coming in 2022. We put out a call for input and listened to over 60,000 people, both employers and employees alike. I am so pleased that this government has made permanent paid sick leave a part of the Employment Standards Act. This paid sick leave is on top of the 3 days of unpaid sick leave that is already part of the Act.

For more information of how this will work, please click here.