The Ministry of Labor (MOL) recently announced a press release to state that the Chinese New Year’s Eve (i.e. 28 January) and Chinese New Year (i.e. from 29 January to 31 January) are national holidays. If the employer obtains the employee’s consent to work during the national holidays mentioned above, the employer shall give the employee double salary according to Article 39 of the Labor Standards Act (LSA). That is, if the employee adopts the regime of monthly salary, an additional one day salary shall be given by the employer. On the other hand, if the employee adopts the regime of hourly salary, the employer shall calculate the employee’s salary by 2 time of his/her hourly rate.
However, as the original working day (i.e. 27 January, Monday) and the original rest day (i.e. 8 February, Saturday) has been exchanged by the work calendar of the government agency (“Work Calendar“) so as to create a consecutive holiday of 9 days (Holiday). If the employer would like to adopt the same Work Calendar as government agency, the employer may implement the 8-week flexible working hours to adjust the working days after an approval is given by the union or labor-management conference (if no union). The MOL further explains the salary to be given by the employer for the work in the Holiday below:
1.As 25 January, 27 January (due to the transfer of the original rest day on 8 February) and 1 February shall be deemed as the rest days (Normally, Saturday unless otherwise agreed upon by the employer and employee), if the employee works in any of the rest days mentioned above, the employer shall pay the employee salary according to Paragraph 2, Article 24 of the LSA. That is, the salary of the rest day shall be 1.34 time of the employee’s hourly rate for the first 2 working hours, and 1.67 time of the employee’s hourly rate for the rest 6 working hours.
2.The period from 28 January to 31 January is national holiday, the employee shall be entitled to double salary as mentioned above.
3.26 January and 2 February are Sunday, which belong to the regular day-off of the employee (Normally, Sunday unless otherwise agreed upon by the employer and employee), unless the act of God, an accident or an unexpected event occurs, the employer cannot request the employee to work on the regular day-off according to Paragraph 1, Article 40 of the LSA.
Finally, the MOL reminded that if the employer does not adjust the working days by referring to the government agency’s practice, when any national holiday is concurrently the employee’s regular day-off or rest day, the compensatory leave shall be given by the employer and the nature of such compensatory shall be treated the same as the national holiday.
David / Paul