Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced today.
The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year's holiday, which featured six extended holidays.
Photo courtesy of the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration
The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party.
Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year's Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited to the private sector.
The legislation also designates Sept. 28 (Confucius' Birthday, also known as Teachers' Day), Oct. 25 (marking the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the anniversary of the Battle of Guningtou in Kinmen in 1949) and Dec. 25 (Constitution Day) as new national holidays.
The act came into effect following a presidential decree issued late last month, which decided that these three new holidays should come in the second half of this year.
According to the latest calendar released by the Cabinet's Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, the other eight extended holidays next year would include two four-day breaks and six three-day weekends.
The first four-day holiday would come in early April, combining Children's Day and Tomb Sweeping Festival.
The second is to fall in late September, covering Mid-Autumn Festival and Teachers' Day.
The calendar stipulates that when a national holiday falls on a Saturday, the make-up day shall be on the preceding Friday, and when it falls on a Sunday, the make-up day shall be the following Monday.
However, if a national holiday falls on a Thursday — as in Constitution Day next year — no day off would be given on Friday to avoid the need for a make-up workday.
The agency said that the new calendar applies only to public servants and employees of state-run enterprises.
Workers in other sectors — such as police, firefighters, coast guard personnel and military staff — may adjust their schedules according to operational needs.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS