North America

Jamaica

Request Info
Employer of Record (EOR) in Jamaica

What you'll learn

  • Country Introduction
  • Employment Terms
  • Minimum Wage and Working Hours
  • Statutory Leave Laws
  • Termination Process
  • Additional Information
Jamaica Introduction

Jamaica is an island country located in the Caribbean Sea. The country has an upper-middle-income with a tourism-based economy. Jamaica has a global influence that disguises its small size — it’s the birthplace of the Rastafari religion, reggae music (and genres such as dub, ska, and dancehall), and is internationally renown in sports. Jamaica is often considered the world’s least populated cultural superpower.

Employment Terms

The weekly minimum wage in Jamaica is JMD 9,000 per week, with a standard workweek of 40 hours at 8 hours per day. Any work exceeding 40 hours, work on a rest day, or work on a holiday, is considered overtime. Overtime is normally paid at 200% of the regular salary.

Types of Leave

Parental Leave

Pregnant employees are entitled to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave after they’ve worked 1 year at an employer. This leave is paid for 8 weeks and is equal to the mother’s normal salary. There’s no mandatory paternity leave, although employers can offer it if they choose.

Sick Leave

Employees are granted 2 weeks of sick leave each year, or 3 weeks if they’ve worked at a company for 10 years.

Paid Leave

There are 11 public holidays in Jamaica, and employees are entitled to 2 weeks of paid time off each year (or 3 weeks of paid leave for employees who have worked at a company for 10 years or more).

Termination Process

Process

Employees can be terminated at will, for business reasons, or for misconduct. Employers need to notify the employee in advance with written notice.

Notice Period

The notice period depends on how long the employee has worked at their company:

  • 0-5 years = 2 weeks notice
  • 5-10 years = 4 weeks notice
  • 10-15 years = 6 weeks notice
  • 15-20 years = 8 weeks notice
  • 20+ years = 12 weeks notice

Severance Pay

Employees are entitled to severance payments if they’re terminated because of redundancy. These payments are calculated as 2 weeks of pay per year for the first 10 years of employment, and 3 weeks of pay for each subsequent year of employment.

Additional Information

N/A

OVERVIEW
Language(s):
English
Currency:
Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
Capital City:
Kingston
Population:
2.9 Million
Cost of Living Rank:
43rd
VAT (Valued Added Tax):
15%
Employer TaxES
12.5%
(estimated)

★  3% - National Insurance Scheme (NIS)

★  3% - National Housing Trust (NHT)

★  3.5% - Education Tax

★  3% - Human Employment and Resource Training (HEART)

Get Started in 3 Steps

1

Remote candidate

You've sourced a full-time employee or contractor located in a country where your company is not incorporated.

2

Cost Calculation

Pass us the details of your candidate and we will let you know exactly what it costs to employ your candidate in that country.

3

Onboarding & Admin

Sit back and relax as we onboard your new team member and take care of all the local compliances and admin work.

Same-day onboarding
Best Pricing
Available in 180+ countries
How Remofirst employs in Jamaica

It can be prohibitively expensive to establish an entity in every country you want to hire talent in, so Remofirst will hire and pay your employee on your behalf while you manage their daily duties. Remofirst will handle formal HR procedures and employment contracts that adhere to local laws, so that you can simply approve invoices via our platform. When you work with an Employer of Record (EOR) you can compliantly hire the best employees around the world.

How employees in Jamaica get paid
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. Remofirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees in Jamaica are paid on time in Jamaican Dollar (JMD). To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Full-time Employees vs Global Contractors

Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.

Dependable support for employees
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about benefits, Visas, or anything else related to international employment in Jamaica, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.