VietNamNet Bridge - The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) has submitted a proposal on a nine-day holiday for the upcoming lunar New Year to the government.
Normally, state employees will be off work from January 21 (Saturday) to 26 (Thursday), and then go to office on January 27 (Friday), then have a weekend.

Under the MoLISA’s proposal, state employees will be off work from January 21 to January 29, 2012, but they will have to work on February 4 to compensate for January 27.

The adjustment would not be applicable for businesses that don’t follow fixed days-off on Saturday and Sunday.

According to the Ministry, the time adjustment will give employees some extra time for traveling and celebrations during the holiday, while giving a slight boost to the economy through extra consumption.

At the recent National Assembly session, NA Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung suggested to increase the lunar New Year holiday by one day. The MoLISA, after that, proposed the government to raise the number of off-work days in a year to 10, instead of 9. However, the government has not agreed yet, saying that this issue has not been carefully researched.

Many NA deputies also agreed to have a five-day Tet holiday, not four because at present, Vietnam’s total off-work days in a year for state employees is only nine while it is 11 days in China, 13 in Indonesia, 17 in South Korea and 25 in Cambodia.

PV