[SkyBelow]

Does this count people who receive PTO that made be used as paid sick leave? If so, I'm not sure it should be counted.

A person who doesn't have any paid sick leave nor PTO they can use it place of it has to take a sick day doesn't get paid for that day. One way of thinking about it is that they do get paid, but then have to give up pay equal to what they get (and all this is calculated before tax purposes). A person who has to use a PTO day that isn't only for sick leave is giving up something with a near value equal to a day of pay. In most cases, any benefits or the like are not cut for either person, meaning they still receive some level of pay when you look at the averaged out of those benefit values over the day.

This may feel like a needless distinction, but I think it matters because when a person without paid sick leave or PTO is sick they have to weigh staying home against not making money, while a person who doesn't have paid sick leave but is allowed to use PTO has to weigh staying home against losing a day of PTO that they can't use for vacation. A person with true sick leave has no such calculation, sick leave they can only use when they are sick means they aren't giving up anything. Well, there is an argument to be made for the day's worth of experience and other such matters are still loss, which for some positions can be enough to choose to work even when there is paid sick leave.