Absence and lateness deduction calculator

What establishments most often get wrong here is conflating two entirely different things: recovering pay for time not worked, and imposing a disciplinary fine.

The first is not a penalty at all. Wages are consideration for work, so an employee absent a day without excuse does not earn that day's pay, and withholding it is not a sanction but an application of the consideration rule. It therefore falls outside the cap on fines.

The second is a disciplinary penalty for the breach itself, set out in the schedule of violations and penalties, and it carries a strict cap. Conflating them means the establishment either deducts less than it lawfully may, or exceeds the cap and commits a breach of its own.

The daily wage equals the monthly wage divided by thirty, the divisor used in most implementations because it treats the month by all its days.

The hourly wage equals the daily wage divided by the contracted daily hours, which are eight in most cases and six during Ramadan for Muslim employees.

The divisor used should be stated in the work regulations rather than left to judgement, because varying it from one employee to another is what opens the door to disputes.

Article 70 sets two caps, not one, and conflating them is the source of most errors here: a fine for a single breach may not exceed five days' pay, and anything beyond that is never validly imposed, so it lapses; and no more than five days' pay may be collected from the wage as fines in any one month.

The difference is practical. The first constrains the penalty itself; the second constrains its collection. Where several breaches occur in one month and each fine stays within its own limit, all of them remain due, and only the collection of what exceeds five days' pay is deferred to later months. The law does not provide for it to lapse.

A single breach may not attract more than one penalty. Nor may a penalty be escalated for a breach repeated after the statutory period has passed since the previous one without recurrence.

Penalties above one day's pay carry a mandatory procedure: notifying the employee in writing of what is alleged, hearing their statement and investigating their defence, and recording this in minutes placed in their file. Skipping that procedure invalidates the penalty even where it was otherwise warranted.

Above all of the foregoing sits a general limit that may not be exceeded: the sums deducted may not exceed half the wage due under Article 93, and that proportion may be exceeded only as established before the labour court, in which case the employee may not be given less than three quarters of their wage.

That total includes disciplinary fines, repayment of debts to the establishment, and any other deduction. Where the grounds together exceed half, the total must be reduced to half and the remainder deferred.

Note what the half is measured against: the wage due, not the full salary. An employee absent ten days without excuse never earned pay for those days, so that pay comes out first and the half is measured on what remains. Measuring the half against the full salary deducts less than is permitted, while treating recovered absence pay as a deduction subject to the half puts inside the cap something that never belonged there.

There is no provision in the Labor Law setting a grace period before lateness counts. The figures that circulate on this point are administrative practice rather than a legal rule.

Correctly, a grace period is the establishment's own decision, and its place is the approved work regulations. Where the regulations do not provide for it, lateness counts from the first minute.

It is prudent for the regulations to state the grace period expressly, with its duration and effective date, because applying it without a written basis leaves every case open to challenge.

All of the above collapses in practice if absence and lateness are not documented in a reliable attendance record showing actual clock-in and clock-out times for each day.

An establishment that deducts from an employee's salary based on a manager's recollection loses against any claim. One that produces a timestamped record tied to a device or a location has evidence behind it.

The same goes for documenting excuses. What separates excused absence from unexcused is a request submitted and decided, not a general impression of the employee.