Paid stat days and sick days?

[Marie999]

Just wondering why so many providers expect to be paid stat/sick/vacation days? Most self employed people are not paid or 'entitled' to these days off, only employees are (typically) ... am I missing something?
As a self employed person I only get paid if I work, period. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, just curious what the reasoning is. .?

[5 Little Monkeys]

I don't get paid sick or vacation days but I do expect them to pay if their child is sick or gone on holidays. They are paying for the spot, not days used, which is why I expect this. Basically, if I'm open, they are expected to pay.

I do ask for paid stat days but at a reduced rate. It is common in my area to pay for stat days so I just went with it. Tbh, I really don't know why it is. I do fully agree with you that as self employed people, we should not get paid unless we are working but I'm not sure why STAT days are paid but I'm glad they are. It's a little break every now and then! When I worked in centres, parents were expected to pay stat days as well even though we were closed.

[Wonderwiper]

Why not???

As I self employed person, I decide what and when I get paid. It's that simple. If my clients are fine with it then who cares? If they weren't fine with it, they wouldn't be my clients.

If I owned a store and wanted to sell pencils for $100 that's my choice. If no one buys them I go out of business or rethink my business plan.

It has nothing to do with "expecting" anything. You set your own plan and that's it.

[sandylynn]

I don't get vacation pay or sick days paid...but if the government gives paid stat days...and the parents get paid...why shouldn't we...it's not like we are asking for those days off...

[kindertime]

There are very few (can't think of any) other self-employed jobs like ours. We are limited in how much we can earn. To operate legally, there is a maximum number of "clients" we can have. If I had a store, I would only be limited by the the amount I could sell. I could have 1 client per day or 1000. I could charge as much as people were willing to pay. If I cleaned houses, I would only be limited by the hours in the day. This is not to say I could earn a million dollars doing either of these things, but they are different from home daycare.

Here, we are further limited by the law. I can have a max. of 6 clients and work a max of 236 days in the year and the pay is predetermined. For this reason, we get paid for 8 stats and for 17 days vacation.

In the rest of the country, I imagine it is more about what clients are willing to pay in any given area, but I don't think it is unreasonable to expect paid time off.

As a self-employed person, you are not entitled to most of the same "social protections" as employees. EI for example, (you can opt-in but then you can never opt-out.) And workman's comp. And maternity leave, and a pension plan and a group health plan. These things are not available to all employees everywhere but they are to many. None of the home daycare providers get them (except in Que.) So some compensation and some time off, again, not so unreasonable.

[sandylynn]

Marie999 are you a home daycare provider?

[superfun]

In my case, I'm licensed through the provincial government. So they say I get paid stat days, and I happily agree. Before I was licensed, I viewed it like this: I am open Monday - Friday every week. My pay cheque shouldn't change just because parents get the day off from work.

[Suzie_Homemaker]

Just wondering why so many providers expect to be paid stat/sick/vacation days? Most self employed people are not paid or 'entitled' to these days off, only employees are (typically) ... am I missing something?
As a self employed person I only get paid if I work, period. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, just curious what the reasoning is. .?

Because, unlike most self employed people, our income is capped based on numbers of children we can take. Like every other business, we have business expenses and so when you take into account daily rate x max children - business expenses, we are often well below min wage.



Add to this, that unlike many self employed people, we don't have flexibility to run errand during day. We are tied to house, local area, not able to have doctor appointment, hospital appointment, get to bank or store. So we need a handful days off to do these basic tasks which most self-employed people can schedule time for and most employees can do on their lunch.

[Marie999]

Good to know all this. Its interesting how different industries tend to run. In my industry contractors charge 10~15% more per hour than their counterpart employees are typically paid, so that's how we make up for not having paid days off. I never thought about your income being 'capped'. I also think as a group daycare providers seem to under sell yourselves, in my area there is a pretty significant gap between what home daycare charges and what a centre charges. Its too bad really, for all the work you gals do you should make more per day.

[kindertime]

Here, here!! Perfect sentiment for ECE week. Thank you. Tell your friends.:thumbsup:

[Marie999]

Marie999 are you a home daycare provider?

No, I'm not. I thought hard about opening a daycare when I was pregnant with my second but ultimately decided to go part time as an independent contractor in my profession instead. I posted on here about it years ago, looking for advice. I just recently came back to the site to ask a question about rates for walking my oldest to school next year and started reading some threads and got curious about the stat day thing....

[Suzie_Homemaker]

I also think as a group daycare providers seem to under sell yourselves, in my area there is a pretty significant gap between what home daycare charges and what a centre charges.

But the market place will dictate our price to an extent.

Sure, we can charge more, but if parent in our area not willing to pay more, then we have no business to run.

Here, day care centre and home day care are similar rate. $35 a day is my rate and that's high end. I have 10 days off a year paid - plus stats.

I'd love to charge more, my client have said they would love to be able to pay more. But already I am $10 more than many - per day.

Like selling a house, it's only worth what someone will pay for it. An over priced house will sit on market with little interest for years and years. We can't afford an empty day care place to sit empty because it driving down our average not running at capacity.

[ebhappydc]

But the market place will dictate our price to an extent.

Sure, we can charge more, but if parent in our area not willing to pay more, then we have no business to run.

Here, day care centre and home day care are similar rate. $35 a day is my rate and that's high end. I have 10 days off a year paid - plus stats.

I'd love to charge more, my client have said they would love to be able to pay more. But already I am $10 more than many - per day.

Like selling a house, it's only worth what someone will pay for it. An over priced house will sit on market with little interest for years and years. We can't afford an empty day care place to sit empty because it driving down our average not running at capacity.

I think there is a large gap here in some areas of Ontario between hdc and centres. Infant care around 12 mnth mark especially; centres are up to 70 dollars per day, and home daycares still around 40. Don't know why but if I advertise for much more then no calls...

[Suzie_Homemaker]

I think there is a large gap here in some areas of Ontario between hdc and centres. Infant care around 12 mnth mark especially; centres are up to 70 dollars per day, and home daycares still around 40. Don't know why but if I advertise for much more then no calls...

Day care centre here are around $42 - for 14 hours opening.

Most expensive day care centre, in sought after high-end town, is $45 a day but many parent not able to afford that. Subsidiary rate is max of $22 for those on very small income/in FT school so parent still responsible for $23 of costs.

Most day care centre around here are $32-$38. Most day home are $30-$35. Some charge little more for infant care but not many.

[torontokids]

It really makes me wonder what justifies daycare centres in Toronto charging $100 per day for infants then. I'm sure the rent etc is higher but not enough to justify these rates. I guess they also have to factor in paying the balance of those of subsidies (if it even comes from the same money).