California employers will soon need to provide employees with a minimum of five days or 40 hours of paid sick leave annually, up from the current requirement of three days or 24 hours.
On October 4th, Governor Newsom signed SB616, a bill that increases the amount of paid sick leave that most California employees are entitled to. The new law, which is expected to take effect on January 1, 2024, makes the following changes to the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014.
- The Minimum Amount of Available Sick Leave Will Increase. Under current law, paid sick leave can be accrued at a rate of at least 1 hour for every 30 hours worked or 24 hours can be front-loaded. When using the accrual method, Employers are allowed to limit employees’ annual use of paid sick leave to 24 hours. This new law has increased this to 40 hours.
- The Maximum Accrual Cap Will Increase. Employees will continue to be allowed to roll over up to a full year’s worth of unused paid sick leave. The maximum sick leave accrual is now capped at 80 hours or 10 days.
- The Math Gets Tricky. Under the new law, Employers who use a different accrual method need to make sure that 24 hours of paid sick leave is available for use by an employee’s 120th day of employment and that all 40 hours are available to use by the 200th day of employment.
- IHSS Workers Maximum Leave Will Increase. The full amount of leave for in-home supportive service providers and individual providers of waiver personal care services will also increase to 40 hours or 5 days annually starting January 1, 2024.
- State and Local Laws Will Be More Closely Aligned. Be aware that there are certain local laws that have different (and sometimes higher) mandates and different methods to calculate paid sick leave.
WorkWise Law is here to help you navigate the new law and to update your employee handbook and sick leave policies.
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