Officials have repeatedly mentioned the implementation of paid leave and will encourage weekend short holidays

The recently held executive meeting of the State Council proposed to promote the implementation of paid leave systems in various places. The reporter noticed that since 2015, Chinese officials have publicly emphasized the implementation of paid leave at least five times, and some places have also introduced relevant details, and the implementation of paid leave is increasing.

Illustration of paid annual leave

According to official policy signals, qualified places and units will be encouraged to flexibly arrange working hours in the summer based on actual conditions to allow employees to Friday afternoon is combined with weekend time to achieve a short vacation.

In 2015, five paid holidays were implemented.

Against the background of slowing economic growth, Chinese officials are paying more and more attention to encouraging consumption such as tourism and leisure to help stabilize economic growth. Travel requires both money and time. As a key part of promoting tourism and leisure consumption, it has become necessary to promote the implementation of paid vacations.

The reporter noticed that since 2015, Chinese officials have publicly emphasized the implementation of paid leave at least five times. On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang pointed out in this year’s government work report that it is necessary to deepen the reform and opening up of the service industry and implement fiscal, taxation, land, price and other support policies as well as paid leave and other systems. ?

In early April, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Building Harmonious Labor Relations," which clearly stated that "effectively guarantee the rights of employees to rest and vacations, and improve and implement the national regulations on employees' working hours, National annual holidays and anniversary holidays, paid annual leave and other regulations?

On April 24, Li Zhong, spokesperson of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, stated at a press conference for the first quarter of 2015 that since the implementation of the paid annual leave system for more than seven years, some employers and employees still have Some individual industrial and commercial households have not conscientiously implemented the legal provisions on paid annual leave, and employees' rights to rest and vacation need to be further implemented. The next step is to implement this work well.

On July 28, Li Keqiang chaired an executive meeting of the State Council to determine policies and measures to promote tourism investment and consumption, which included the need to "promote the implementation of paid leave systems in all regions."

On July 31, Wu Wenxue, deputy director of the National Tourism Administration, revealed at the State Council’s regular policy briefing that the State Council executive meeting on July 28 reviewed and passed the “Regulations on Further Promoting Tourism Investment and Consumption” "Several Opinions" clearly mentioned the need to further promote the implementation of the paid leave system.

This briefing released some specific signals for the implementation of paid leave, including encouraging "Friday afternoon + weekend" short vacations. According to Wu Wenxue, all units and enterprises should be encouraged to adopt relatively flexible vacation arrangements based on their actual conditions to achieve off-peak vacations; qualified places and units should also be encouraged to flexibly arrange working hours in the summer based on actual conditions. , creating favorable conditions for employees to combine Friday afternoon and weekend time to achieve a short vacation.

All localities are gradually introducing detailed rules and measures

At the above-mentioned briefing, Wu Wenxue also said that it is necessary to promote localities to formulate detailed implementation rules or implementation plans for paid leave to ensure implementation. The reporter noticed that since 2015, many places have issued opinions on the implementation of paid leave.

In June, Beijing issued the "Implementation Opinions of Beijing Municipality on the Implementation of the National Tourism and Leisure Outline (2013-2020)", clearly encouraging employers to guide employees to flexibly arrange their vacation time throughout the year to effectively ensure their leisure time. right. From July 1 to August 14, Beijing carried out special law enforcement inspection activities to inspect employers’ implementation of paid annual leave regulations.

In addition, Hunan, Lanzhou in Gansu, Harbin in Heilongjiang and other places have successively issued implementation details for paid leave for staff in government agencies and institutions.

Among them, on May 25, the General Office of the Hunan Provincial Government issued the "Implementation Rules for Paid Annual Leave for Staff of Government Institutions and Institutions in Hunan Province"; on May 4, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province issued The "Implementation Measures for the Comprehensive Implementation of the Paid Annual Leave System for Staff of Government Institutions and Public Institutions" was issued; previously in early April, Harbin issued the "Implementation Opinions on Paid Annual Leave for Staff of Government Government Institutions and Institutions".

These three places have clearly stipulated that staff of government agencies and institutions who have worked continuously for more than one year shall enjoy paid annual leave. If a staff member has more than 1 year of service but less than 10 years, he or she will receive 5 days of annual leave; if he or she has more than 10 years of service but less than 20 years, he or she will receive 10 days of annual leave; if he or she has more than 20 years of service, he or she will receive 15 days of annual leave.

Among them, what attracts attention is that Lanzhou compulsorily implements paid leave in government agencies and institutions, stipulating that all staff members who meet the annual leave conditions must take annual leave, and annual leave subsidies that should be taken uninterrupted are no longer Distributed?.

? Difficult to implement? The embarrassment still needs to be solved

From the central to local governments, the implementation of the paid leave system continues to increase, but it cannot be ignored that in some places and units, The implementation status of paid leave is not optimistic.

A survey by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security shows that the current implementation rate of paid leave is about 50%.

The implementation of paid leave is relatively good mainly in party and government agencies, public institutions, large state-owned enterprises, and foreign-funded enterprises, while some private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises have relatively poor implementation.

Guangxi recently held a press conference on paid annual leave for employees and pointed out that the implementation of paid annual leave still exists. They are worried that vacation will affect promotion or bear the brunt of layoffs in the future. Some employees dare not take vacation; in order to complete the piece-rate quota or During performance appraisals, some employees gave up their vacations. At the same time, there are still some government agencies and institutions whose annual leave arrangements and management systems are not perfect; some units or departments are unable to arrange vacations due to small staff and heavy workloads.

Regarding the reasons for the difficulty in implementation, Huang Xihua, a representative of the National People's Congress and director of the Tourism Bureau of Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, previously said in an interview with a reporter from China News Service that on the one hand, labor costs have been rising in recent years, especially for employers. It is small and medium-sized enterprises that hope to reduce costs by reducing employees' paid leave time, and therefore are unwilling to take the initiative to implement paid leave. On the other hand, employees often dare not take the initiative to protect their vacation rights due to personal livelihood needs or fear of losing their jobs.

Liu Simin, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Tourism Society, told a reporter from China News Service that paid leave has become a "paper benefit", and insufficient law enforcement supervision and penalties are also important reasons. Penalties for units that violate regulations are small or even zero-cost, further aggravating the difficulty of implementing paid leave.

Experts suggest that relevant detailed rules for the implementation of paid leave should be introduced nationwide as soon as possible, and the active supervision and accountability of labor inspection departments should be further increased to increase the cost of violating the law and strictly investigate those who fail to implement the regulations. Employers’ liability for violations of the annual paid leave system shall be clarified in order to continuously improve the implementation rate of paid leave.

?With a system in place, the fundamental issue still lies in its implementation so that the system can better exert its economic and social effects. ?Wu Wenxue said that after the "Several Opinions on Further Promoting Tourism Investment and Consumption" are officially released, the National Tourism Administration will work with relevant departments to formulate and improve implementation methods and specific implementation measures.

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