Workers Continue to Receive Less Thanksgiving Holiday Paid Time Off in 2011

For the second consecutive year, employers are less generous in providing their workers Thanksgiving holiday leave. Levels of gift giving, virtually unchanged for the past six years, remain at historically low levels, according to BNA’s annual survey of employers’ year-end holiday plans.

Just over seven in 10 surveyed employers (72 percent) have designated both Thanksgiving Day (November 24) and the day after as paid holidays in 2011, down from the 74 percent and the 79 percent that did so in 2010 and 2009, respectively. As in previous years, nearly all surveyed employers (96 percent) have scheduled Thanksgiving Day as a paid holiday for employees.

Furthermore, the number of employers requiring some employees to work on Thanksgiving Day is at near record lows. This year, nearly three in 10 employers (29 percent) will require some employees to work on Thanksgiving Day. This percentage is identical to the proportion of employers mandating Thanksgiving Day work in 2010. However, over the past 18 years employer requirements for Thanksgiving holiday work have declined significantly. In 2002, nearly half of all surveyed employers (47 percent) required at least some employees to work on this holiday.

The survey also finds that:

• Twelve percent of employers plan to give their workers a holiday gift this year, a figure that has remained stable for the past six years. While the incidence of Thanksgiving holiday gift giving has remained virtually unchanged over the past half decade, it is at historically low levels. At 12 percent, gift giving is down sharply from the 2004 high of 23 percent and the 15 to 18 percent range seen from 1995-2003.

• Gift certificates are the Thanksgiving holiday gift of choice for employers, followed closely by the holiday turkey.

• For six of the last seven years, gift certificates for food items have been the leading Thanksgiving gift. Six percent of surveyed employers will be giving employees gift certificates this Thanksgiving, with the traditional turkey in second place, offered by three percent of employers.

• Security/public safety and service/maintenance workers are among those most likely to be required to work on Thanksgiving Day.

• Workers in manufacturing enterprises and smaller organizations are most likely to celebrate a four-day holiday weekend. Nine out of 10 manufacturers (90 percent) will give employees both Thanksgiving Day and the following Friday as paid holidays. This compares with seven in 10 employers in nonmanufacturing (71 percent) and 63 percent in nonbusiness concerns (such as hospitals, educational facilities, and government organizations).

• A four-day holiday weekend will be much more prevalent in smaller organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees (78 percent) than in larger concerns with 1,000 employees or more (54 percent).

• Nonunion establishments are somewhat more likely than their unionized counterparts (74 percent versus 65 percent) to give their employees a four-day holiday weekend in 2011.

• Most employees who work on Thanksgiving Day can expect to receive additional compensation.  Overtime pay (45 percent) in the form of either time-and-a-half (26 percent) or double-time pay (19 percent) is the most frequent form of compensation offered to those who work on Thanksgiving Day.

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