As the Democratic party pushes hard for a federal paid sick leave policy, a study from the Society for Human Resource Management found that, among companies with 50-plus employees, only about half offer paid sick days to their fulltime workers.
Additionally, only about a quarter to a third offer any paid time off to part-time workers.
The data was extracted from SHRM's 2014 survey of employers, which gathered input from more than 1,000 organizations with 50 or more employees. The Families and Work Institute partnered in the research.
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SHRM reported that 99 percent of those surveyed offered some kind of paid time off to fulltime workers. Most common at 58 percent were paid vacation days, followed by sick days at 52 percent and the general category of paid time off (PTO), 41 percent.
Part-time workers have considerably less access to any paid time off. Of those surveyed, 24 percent offered hourly workers some type of PTO and 32 percent offered it to salaried part-timers.
While larger employers were more likely to offer PTO to part-time employees, SHRM said it "found no significant differences between large employers and small employers in offering any of the three types of paid leave — sick days, vacation time or general paid time off, known as PTO."
"While most full-time employees have access to paid leave, the changing nature of work, where more individuals are working multiple jobs or are working part-time positions because they can't find full-time work, can pose economic and work-life challenges for these employees," said Kenneth Matos, senior director of research for FWI and author of the new report. "We should rethink the kind of paid leave policies that part-time workers have."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
