Each time a public holiday falls midweek, the administrative machinery restarts a familiar cycle: proposals, consultations, approvals, and waiting for final decisions.

Under Article 112 of the Labor Code, workers are currently entitled to only one paid day off for New Year’s Day. In 2026, that would have meant a fragmented schedule: Thursday off, returning to work on Friday (January 2), then another weekend break.

To avoid this disruption, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed, and Deputy Prime Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra approved, a “swap” plan  -  shifting Friday into a day off to form a four-day holiday, with a make-up workday on the following Saturday.

From a social perspective, this is a sensible approach that encourages travel and restores worker productivity. But from a governance standpoint, it exposes a structural weakness: the absence of an automatic mechanism in law, forcing ministries to repeat the same administrative process each year.

The burden of case-by-case management

Vietnam’s current approach to holiday scheduling relies heavily on administrative intervention. Each time a holiday lands between weekdays, a lengthy procedure follows  -  drafting proposals, circulating them among ministries, consolidating feedback, and awaiting the Prime Minister’s signature.

This leads to uncertainty, especially for businesses with production lines or global supply chains that require long-term planning. Decisions often arrive only months before the holiday, leaving companies and workers little time to prepare.

Moreover, government-mandated holiday swaps apply mainly to public offices, while private enterprises are merely “encouraged” to follow. This inconsistency creates social friction  -  parents working in the private sector may still have to work while their children attending public schools are off.

Globally, countries handle this challenge in two contrasting ways: centralized management and automatic stability.

“Make-up workdays” need a long-term vision

In nations following centralized management models such as China, Russia, and Vietnam, governments play an active role in adjusting calendars.

China’s State Council, for instance, issues holiday swaps to create “golden weeks,” though workers often compensate with consecutive working days lasting up to nine days  -  a practice now being reconsidered due to fatigue and public criticism. In November 2024, China introduced reforms limiting continuous workdays to six and increasing total annual leave.

Russia also regulates holidays centrally, using its authority to combine the New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays into an eight-day winter break. If a public holiday falls on a weekend, the compensatory day off is moved to another part of the year  -  often in May to form a spring holiday.

Crucially, these countries publish their national holiday calendars far in advance, allowing citizens and businesses to plan ahead  -  something Vietnam could emulate.

Legalizing stability

In contrast, countries like Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom have long resolved this issue through legislation.

Japan’s “Happy Monday” system automatically moves fixed-date holidays to Mondays, creating consistent three-day weekends. Its “Sandwich Rule” goes further: any workday between two holidays automatically becomes a holiday by law. Citizens and businesses can therefore know their holiday schedules a decade ahead.

In the United States, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act (1968) moved several major federal holidays  -  such as Memorial Day and Presidents’ Day  -  to Mondays, ensuring regular long weekends without extra administrative intervention. While “bridge days,” like the Friday after Thanksgiving, remain working days, many employers voluntarily give staff time off or allow the use of annual leave.

Across Europe, flexibility is embedded in worker rights. In France, employees have generous annual leave (25–30 days) and can freely use them to “bridge” short gaps between holidays. In Germany, workers can use “time accounts”  -  accumulated overtime hours  -  to take off days between holidays without losing pay.

A roadmap for Vietnam

Compared with these systems, Vietnam’s holiday management remains reactive, lacking long-term predictability. It is time to shift from “annual administrative approvals” to “legislated automatic principles.”

This transformation could follow three key steps:

First, adopt a short-term solution by introducing a multi-year “holiday framework.” Instead of annual approvals, the Government could plan holiday swaps for three to five years in advance, as practiced in Russia and China. This would benefit enterprises, tourism, and logistics planning.

Second, amend Article 112 of the Labor Code to allow automatic swaps when holidays fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays  -  effectively moving them to create long weekends without yearly consultations. A stronger version could even adopt Japan’s “Sandwich Rule,” granting an automatic day off for workdays between two holidays.

Third, expand annual leave entitlements. Vietnam’s current 12-day minimum is modest compared to France (30), the UK (28), or Russia (28). Increasing it to 15–18 days would empower employees to manage their own bridge holidays, reducing reliance on government decisions.

In a socialist-oriented market economy, strategic predictability is key. By referencing Japan’s “automatic stability” and Russia’s standardization model, Vietnam can create a sustainable legal framework where extended holidays become a guaranteed right  -  not an annual administrative favor.

Such reform would not only enhance national productivity and family life but also reflect the values of a prosperous and forward-looking society.

Nguyen Phuoc Thang (Hoa Binh University)