How much sick time is typically offered to employees?

June 14, 2012 12:44 PM

How much annual sick time is typically offered by companies in California to their employees?
posted by Dansaman to Work & Money (12 answers total)

I worked at several companies in California and it was different at each one. Is there a particular industry or area of California you're interested in? There may be some generalities.
posted by serialcomma at 12:54 PM on June 14, 2012

From zero to take what you need, we know you will make it up later. What kind of employee are you talking about, at what kind of company?
posted by rockindata at 12:55 PM on June 14, 2012

There is no typical in California. Or probably in the U.S. I've had everything from take-what-you-need to X days per year.
posted by rtha at 1:09 PM on June 14, 2012

There is no standard. And sick time and be paid or unpaid, so there's that too.

Other than basic compliance with the FMLA, there's no legal requirement either.
posted by valkyryn at 1:27 PM on June 14, 2012

I've never had sick time at a California company. It's always been just Personal Time Off (PTO) that you used however you wanted. So you use it for vacation or if you're sick. Current company gives 15 days/per year. No idea if this is typical.
posted by Long Way To Go at 1:48 PM on June 14, 2012

My company has paid sick time (6 days per year, no roll-over from year-to-year) and paid vacation time as separate benefits.
posted by quince at 1:52 PM on June 14, 2012

You might get more useful responses if you included some detail of the amount of sick time you receive, and let others comment on how common that system is.
posted by John Borrowman at 2:04 PM on June 14, 2012

Agreed. I've been offered none to literally "as much as you want."
posted by OrangeDrink at 2:04 PM on June 14, 2012

Do you mean employers like Google or do you mean employers like McDonald's? Both actually have quite a presence in California.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 2:10 PM on June 14, 2012

You should probably assume that "in general" it's "about a week, or maybe two somewhere generous." But yeah, it can technically vary everywhere. Bigger companies tend to offer more time or are more lenient than small businesses that can't afford to have you out much.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:12 PM on June 14, 2012

San Francisco has an ordinance requiring 1 hour of sick leave to be accrued for every 30 hours worked. Other than this I'm not aware of any legal requirement in CA to offer paid sick leave.
posted by Nimmie Amee at 2:48 PM on June 14, 2012

I work on one of the UC campuses and the bulk of the staff earn 8 hours per month, which rolls over annually, but there is a cap at which you stop accruing. This is separate from our vacation time. The sick time accrual never changes, but the vacation time accrual increases depending on longevity and position.
posted by blackkar at 8:09 PM on June 14, 2012