The sun is high in the sky, and California employees are thinking about taking vacation to enjoy the warm weather. Most employees love to take some time off to relax and recharge. However, not all employers offer paid vacation time. Is that legal?

No law in California requires an employer to offer Paid Time Off (PTO) or paid vacation. Of course, some California laws require paid leave. For instance, employees receive 5 days of paid sick leave in California, but that is different from paid vacation. Paid vacation is a perk that employers may offer, but many employers do not offer it.

What happens if you take a vacation, but your employer does not pay you wages while you are away? You pay twice. Once for vacation expenses-hotels, flights, gas, food, etc.-and once for not working while you are on vacation.

In contrast, large numbers of employers do offer paid vacation. Normally, you must ask for it in advance because most employers reserve the right to deny the vacation time when it could harm business operations. For instance, often employers only allow a limited number of employees to take vacation around Christmas and New Years because they cannot afford to have everyone gone at the same time. The best practice is to ask for your preferred days of vacation well in advance. That gives you the best chance of taking a vacation when you want to.

Minimum wage jobs usually do not offer paid vacation. However, if you are working a minimum wage job now, you are probably learning valuable skills that will help you get a better paying job with benefits, like paid vacation. In the meantime, minimum wage jobs have improved in California.

Over the last decade, California has steadily increased the minimum wage. The California minimum wage in 2016 was $10 per hour. In 2024, it is $16 per hour. In addition, the FAST Recovery Act increased minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour as of April 1, 2024. That officially only applies to fast food chains that have at least 60 stores throughout the United States.

Since April 1 of this year, some food chains have closed stores in California. They appear to blame the high cost of doing business in California, including the $20 per hour minimum wage. After all, that is 25% higher than the state minimum wage for most other employers, who now pay $16 per hour, unless they do business in a city that has a higher minimum wage.

Not only has the $20 per hour minimum wage appeared to squeeze some restaurants, but it also has appeared to pressure restaurants not covered by the FAST Recovery Act. Some argue that minimum wage employees are more likely to seek restaurant jobs that must pay at least $20 per hour over others that only must pay $16 per hour. As employees flock to get the $20 per hour jobs, fewer of them apply for the lower paying jobs. In turn, the restaurants that only pay $16 per may need to offer higher wages to get enough employees to serve their customers.

Anecdotally, California restaurants prices have appeared to uniformly climb in recent months. One wonders whether the minimum wage of $20 per hour has anything to do with that.

Employment Law Office of Ward Heinrichs
4565 Ruffner Street, Suite 207
San Diego, CA 92111
858-292-0792
(858)408-7543 (fax)