Employees working during the Lunar New Year holiday should receive double pay, and if the holiday coincides with working employees’ fixed or flexible days off, they should receive compensatory time off for the public holidays, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday.
This year’s Lunar New Year holiday began yesterday and ends on Sunday.
If the fixed day off or flexible day off of an employee who is working during the holidays happens to fall on any of the four days, they should decide in consultation with their employer when to take the unused days, the ministry said.
If an employee agrees to work on their flexible day off, their wage on the day should be calculated based on the flexible day rate detailed in Article 24 of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), the ministry said.
According to the article, when the overtime work does not exceed two hours, an employee should be paid their regular hourly wage plus an additional wage calculated at 1.33 times the regular hourly rate; when the overtime work exceeds two hours, the additional wage for the third hour onward should be calculated at 1.66 times the regular hourly rate.
For example, an employee with a monthly salary of NT$36,000 (US$1,227) who works four hours on his flexible day off should receive NT$1,500 for the day’s work, the ministry said.
If an employee agrees to work on a public holiday during the Lunar New Year period, they should be paid double their hourly rate, the ministry said.
The same rate applies to an employee working on their compensatory holiday for an unused public holiday, it added.
However, since the amendments to the labor law passed on Jan. 10 do not take effect until next month, overtime pay during the Lunar New Year holiday is still calculated in four-hour blocks.
Employers who violate the above-mentioned regulations would be required to pay back wages as well as a fine of between NT$20,000 and NT$1 million, the ministry said.
Throughout the Lunar New Year, the ministry’s 24-hour 1995 hotline for foreign workers will be open to provide consultation services for employees, employers and workers’ agencies alike, the ministry said.
The free service is available in Mandarin, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and English.
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