One of the problems is the lack of clear statistics on that. To be able to give you an accurate answer, I would have to have an exact idea of the employment policies of all federally regulated employers to determine what they provide—approximately—and under what conditions. We would also have to know the schedules of all employees in great detail. Unfortunately, we don't have such sophisticated statistics.
On the other hand, I can tell you that we have nevertheless identified certain groups of workers who are currently especially vulnerable when it comes to the eligibility requirements.
We know that 110,000 federally regulated employees are working part time. That accounts for about 14% of all federally regulated employees. In addition, there are more women than men—9% of men work part time, while that figure is 20% for women.
That being said, not all part-time workers are excluded. In certain cases, they benefit from an exception to the 15-day rule. If they have a regular and continuous schedule, they may be eligible. Nevertheless, a certain number of people have a flexible schedule and occasionally do not meet the 15-day standard. That's a fairly vulnerable group.
Another vulnerable group is made up of employees who aren't eligible for paid sick leave. So we could be talking about someone who does not earn wages for 15 days out of 30 because they are sick or have to miss work. That's unfortunate, but, currently, if someone is sick and does not earn wages for 15 days, they are not entitled to anything.
At this time, according to the latest data from 2008, three-quarters of federally regulated businesses do not give their employees paid sick leave, at least not systematically. That may be their choice. The fact remains that those employees are vulnerable if they have to miss work because of illness. There could be a problem with that, as a fairly large group of people is affected.
There are also women who go on maternity leave or men who go on parental leave. If someone takes one of those leaves, returns to work and has not earned 15 days of wages, they are excluded. Thousands of people end up in that situation. The same goes for people who were temporarily laid off. Someone who was laid off and had failed to earn 15 days of wages is excluded.
To come back to your original question, we cannot provide you with an exact figure. However, we can identify a number of groups that are currently vulnerable.