Leap year 2024: Extra day doesn’t necessarily mean more pay. Why?

Millions of employed Canadians will be at work this Feb. 29 — a date that occurs once every four years — but will they walk home with more money for the extra day this leap year?

For the first time in four years, Canadians will mark Feb. 29 this Thursday.

Thousands of Canadians born on Feb. 29 will actually get to celebrate their birthday on that day, and millions more will be working on it.

However, does a leap year automatically translate into more pay? Unless you’re a certain type of worker, chances are not, experts say.

“For most employees, in fact, I’ll say the vast majority of employees, you should expect it is going to be business as usual,” said Jon Pinkus, partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP.

“This is not an unforeseen circumstance.”

Leap years exist to keep the months in sync with annual events, including equinoxes and solstices, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. That’s because, technically, it doesn’t take the earth 365 days to revolve around the sun, it takes us 365.2421 days.

The concept of the leap year has evolved over the ages. In 46 BCE, Roman Emperor Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar as a way to deal with major seasonal drift.

The Julian calendar was purely solar and counted a year at 365.25 days, so once every four years an extra day was added. Before that, the Romans counted a year at 355 days, at least for a time.