1. Recess Hours

(1) Free use and limit of recess hours
Recess hours set aside from the work burden are rights fully given to the employee during the work day. Accordingly, the employee may freely use his/her recess hours, but shall abide by all the regulations necessary to manage the building or facilities and not violate company order, nor disturb the free recess hours of his/her co-workers.

(2) Scope of recess hours
The employer shall, between working hours, allow a recess of not less than thirty minutes to employees working for four hours or a recess of not less than one hour to employees working for eight hours(Article 54 of the LSA). “Working for four hours” in the Act means that the employer shall permit at least 30 minutes of recess for working without rest for four hours. Recess hours cannot be given at the beginning or at the end of the working period.

(3) Method of providing recess hours
The arranging of recess hours is not specified in the Labor Standards Act. Therefore, recess hours may be provided in a collective or divided manner. Ten-minute breaks for every one-hour or twenty-minute breaks after every two-hour work shall be included in the working hours, and they shall not count as recess hours as described in the Labor Standards Act. Lengthy rest hours are not always better, because the longer the rest hours, the longer the employee must stay at the workplace and lose his/her private time.


2. Statutory holidays

(1) Concept
A holiday is a day when the employee is not only exempt from the duty of work but is also free from any supervision. Holidays and off-days can be distinguished as statutory or contractual holidays depending on whether or not the holiday or leave is given as a duty. Holidays and leave can either be recognized as paid/unpaid holidays or paid leave/unpaid leave based on wage payment.
1) Weekly holidays

An employer shall grant a weekly holiday with pay at least once a week on average, provided that the employee concerned has worked all of the contractual working days(as determined in the rules of employment, etc.) for the preceding week. It is advisable that weekly holidays, which are not necessarily Sundays, should be stated in the rules of employment or other forms of company rules. Once a weekly holiday is fixed on a specific day (for example, Sunday), it is possible that an employee who was absent from work on a working day might use the weekly holiday without pay. An employee who has worked on a weekly holiday shall be paid an additional 50% of the normal wage for the hours worked(Article 56 of the LSA).
The interval between a weekly off-day and the following weekly off-day shall be ideally within 7 days. However, Article 55 shall not apply to a short-term employee whose weekly average contractual hours for a 4-week period are less than 15.

2) Labor Day
Labor Day is officially May 1st by establishment of the Labor Day Act (Mar.9,1994). This day is counted as a paid holiday according to the Labor Standards Act.

(2) Holiday Work
1) Additional allowance
An additional allowance is paid for work provided during paid or unpaid holidays. In cases where extended work and holiday work overlap, allowances shall be paid in a combined sum. For the two-shift every-other-day work system, the off-day is differentiated from a holiday without work duty, thus an additional allowance shall not be paid even if the employee works on the off-day.
2) Prior substitution of holiday
Prior substitution of holiday signifies a system in which the employee works on the designated off-days and instead takes another day off from work, through prior arrangement of the parties concerned in the Collective Agreement or Rules of Employment. In this case, the original holiday becomes a regular working day. Consequently, neither a holiday allowance nor an additional paid holiday allowance shall be provided
3) Labor Ministry Guidelines and Judicial Rulings
①For work on paid holidays, the rate of payment shall be 250 percent: 100 percent for paid holiday, 100 percent for actual work, and 50 percent as an additional allowance¹⁵⁶⁾
②Extended work exceeding contractual working hours agreed upon between the employer and an employee, within the range of standard working hours of the LSA, does not demand an additional allowance¹⁵⁷⁾
③ Weekly holiday and monthly and annual paid leave shall be calculated according to the attendance rate for the total number of days after omitting the period of a justified labor strike.¹⁵⁸⁾
④ Weekly holidays and monthly and annual paid leave are calculated according to the attendance rate of working days excluding the period of justified labor strikes. Those days of no work due to unjustified labor strike shall be treated as absences.¹⁵⁹⁾
⑤The act of substituting leave with allowances promptly after monthly and annual leave was granted is forfeiting the employee from use of leave.¹⁶⁰⁾
⑦Whether the employee maintains perfect attendance or a 80 percent attendance is determined from the first day he/she began working for the company; but the attendance rate can be calculated from Jan. 1st of each year according to Collective Agreement or Rules of Employment.¹⁶¹⁾
⑧When extended work and night work overlap, 50 percent or more of ordinary wage shall be paid respectively.¹⁶²⁾


3. Annual Paid Leave

(1) Concept
Annual paid leave shall be granted to an emplo.yee with perfect attendance of their contractual working hours during one year. This is designed to provide leave to an employee who has served his/her contractual working hours for a long duration, so he/she can recover from fatigue from extended work and refresh his/her mind and body.

(2) Contents of law(Article 60 of the LSA)
An employer shall grant 15 days of annual leave with pay to an employee who has recorded 80% or higher in workplace attendance. An employer shall grant 1 holiday with pay per month of full attendance to his/her employees who have worked less than 1 year. For the first year, the number of leave days used shall be deducted from 15 days. The days an employee is absent from work by reason of occupational accident or pre- and post-natal leave, shall be treated as days worked.
For an employee who has worked for 3 years or longer, the employer shall grant an additional 1 day in paid holiday for every 2 years following the first year, and the number of additional holidays shall be limited to 25 days. An employer shall grant his/her employee annual leave on the days that the employee wants to use his/her annual leave. However, when the employer believes that allowing the use of annual leave on the days wanted would do great harm to his/her business, he/she may reschedule the timing of annual leave. An employer may have his/her employee take a day off on a particular working day in lieu of an annual leave day with pay, as long as he/she and the employee representative have reached a written agreement to do so.
Given that annual leave days may be saved for a year and can be split for use on several occasions, it is advisable that a ledger of leave days saved be recorded and maintained for each individual employee.

(3) How to use annual paid leave


In cases where a short-term employee contracted for less than 1 year, one day per month is given. However, if he/she works more than one year, a 15-day leave, not 12 days, are given. Accordingly, an extra 3 day leave shall be provided.
For an employee who begins working for a company on January 1, 2016, a one-day leave for service provided in January occurs on February 1, and occurs