If you get paid monthly then today your hard work is on the house.

Because 2012 is a leap year, an extra day is added to the calendar and the gap between February's pay day and March's has an extra work day, while salary rates remain the same.

Christine Partridge, general manager of Smart Payroll, said it was a valid issue which she had never considered before.

"For somebody who has an agreement with their employer to be paid monthly ... every fourth year, on leap year, they are working an extra day for the same amount of money," Ms Partridge said. "It comes down to the agreement between the employer and the employee."

Only those with a set pay day each month would be out of pocket – salaried workers paid weekly or fortnightly would not be affected.

There were about 1.7 million fulltime employees in New Zealand to the December 2011 quarter but data on whether workers were paid monthly was not collected, Statistics New Zealand said.

Latest statistics showed the average weekly pay cheque for a fulltime worker was $1016.95, meaning a day's work could be valued at $203.39.

A Labour Department spokesperson said there were no specific provisions for the anomaly under the Employment Relations Act.

Salaried student exchange office worker Michael van Dyk, 24, said he was not too worried.

"I would have remained blissfully ignorant had you not told me ... but any extra money is welcome."

The leap day, part of the Gregorian calendar system created in 1582, involves inserting an extra day into February every four years to compensate for the difference between the calendar year and the time it takes for Earth to orbit the sun.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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