"The best way to steer the country out of recession: close it for two weeks and have a street party."

Precision Printing managing director Gary Peeling’s tweet on the impending marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton sums up the feelings of many business owners. It has been estimated that this event will cost the UK economy around £2.9bn, which you would have thought would be a major concern to ‘fiscally neutral’ George and his chums at the Treasury.

As one industry figure put it: "During one of the worst recessions in living memory, our government has conspired to cost the British economy billions of pounds in lost activity, for the sake of a wedding. By definition, the wedding becomes the most expensive in history. It should have been left to our employees to decide whether they wanted to spend a day at home watching TV at the expense of a day’s holiday."

It certainly seems like an odd time, with the economic recovery slowing to a crawl, to give the nation the go-ahead to down tools, pens and PCs for 24 hours. Then again, this is just another example of the coalition’s remarkable knack for simultaneously occupying two diametrically opposed positions. First of all it wanted the banks to lend more money to struggling businesses, while at the same time increasing the ratio of liquid assets they hold to risky loans they grant. Then it wanted us to vote both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to the upcoming AV referendum, depending on which side of the coalition you were listening to. But most importantly, it wanted to remove the shackles from UK firms, to promote growth in the private sector, making it the driving force that will pull us all out of recession. Oh, but it also wants the nation to take an extra day off this year to celebrate the wedding of two complete strangers.

Before he’s labelled some sort of latter-day Scrooge by any royalists among you, Peeling, for all his scorn, has granted his staff the day off on 29 April and Precision will be closing up shop as it does for all public holidays.

Others have not been as generous and have, quite reasonably from a business perspective, chosen to ignore the royal wedding.

"We can’t afford to lose a day of production and for anyone like us operating on continental shifts it’s just a nightmare anyway," says one such printer. "And no, we’re not giving people a day off in lieu either."

As Angela Baron of Employee Resourcing points out (see opinion), while employers can choose not to give employees the time off, the impact on staff relations must be considered.

One printer who has put those relations ahead of his firm’s bottom line is Les Manning, managing director of Printflow, although it’s clear that he will not be thanking the government for its decision to heap more difficulties on the very firms it is demanding so much from in terms of boosting the UK’s flagging growth figures.

"Bank holidays always cost us money and it’s one more that we could do without," he says. "I could accept one for St George’s Day but not this; I don’t see it’s important enough to justify a day off work. Our staff have got the day off because we didn’t want to compromise them but we will maintain a skeleton staff. I’ll be at work. Apparently Friday is the new Saturday when it comes to weddings."

Apparently so, although without banging on about it, the state of the economy does make the idea of an extra bank holiday, particularly crammed between the Easter weekend and the first of two public holidays in May, seem all the more ridiculous.

"It’s difficult for any employer. It’s going to cost us a lot of money and be very disruptive," says St Ives chief executive Patrick Martell. "With the back-to-back holiday weekends there’s a hugely extended period of time in April being disrupted. Customers and suppliers will be away, making it difficult to get business done. We’re in an international market competing against lots of countries who won’t be taking a day off."

So not only will printers have to bear the burden (should they choose to) of giving their staff an extra day off, but they may also find that work starts to run dry in the run-up to the traditionally quiet summer months. So even those who are ignoring the bank holiday may not be able to escape its impact completely. And in case you thought this was a one-off, there is an extra bank holiday planned in 2012, on 5 June, for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

30-SECOND BRIEFING
• The government has declared a ninth bank holiday in the current year, on Friday 29 April, to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton
• Contrary to popular belief there is no statutory right to bank holidays. A full-time employee working a five-day week is entitled to 28 days’ paid leave per year; however, this can include the eight UK public holidays
• While there is no law entitling workers to bank holidays, entitlement will depend on the terms of their contract. Many contracts give employees a number of days’ holiday (20 for example) plus all public holidays and bank holidays. In this instance the employer would be obliged to give their workforce the extra day off
• If your contracts state that your annual entitlement is for a set number of days’ paid leave plus eight statutory holidays, you have no legal obligation to grant staff the additional holiday on 29 April
• Whether you give staff the day off or not, you should consider not only the bottom line but the potential impact on staff relations and how this might affect the business in the future
• Even if you are remaining open, your business may still be affected by the public holiday due to the anticipated increase in people taking lengthy breaks at the end of April, which could lead to a lull in incoming orders
• There is already a ninth public holiday planned for 2012, on 5 June, to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee