Publish more articles! Several policy measures to encourage staggered and phased vacations to further boost and expand consumption | Paid vacation | Discussion. Shandong Province

Fully implement the paid vacation system, encourage staggered vacations, flexible work schedules, and promote holiday consumption... Among the 20 measures recently announced to expand consumption, the content related to vacation has sparked widespread discussion. After the release of the above-mentioned documents, another follow-up has recently been made - the Shandong Provincial People's Government has issued several policy measures to further boost and expand consumption, which proposes to fully implement the paid leave system, encourage staggered leave, and flexible work and rest.

Multiple publications: Encourage staggered and phased vacations

The "Several Policy Measures for Further Boosting and Expanding Consumption" released by Shandong Province clearly proposes to fully implement the paid vacation system, encourage staggered vacations and flexible work schedules, and promote holiday consumption.

In addition, the document also mentions encouraging scenic spots to implement a one ticket multiple use system based on actual conditions, in order to better meet the diverse needs of tourists. Innovate nighttime cultural and tourism consumption scenarios, and create 20 provincial-level nighttime cultural and tourism consumption clusters within the year.

Although paid leave has attracted people's attention, it is not a new thing. As a fundamental right of employees, it has been explicitly stipulated in the Labor Law since its implementation in 1995.

The "Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees" implemented in January 2008 clearly stipulate that employees enjoy the same salary income during their annual leave period as during their normal working period. And specific vacation days have been stipulated: employees who have worked for more than 1 year but less than 10 years will have an annual vacation of 5 days; For those who have been on vacation for 10 to 20 years, 10 days of annual leave will be granted; For those who have completed 20 years, they will have an annual leave of 15 days.

Since then, the implementation of the paid leave system has been continuously included in government work reports for many years. Previously, the General Office of the State Council issued multiple documents related to promoting consumption, all of which mentioned the implementation of paid leave. According to incomplete statistics by China News Finance reporters, at least ten provinces including Hebei, Jiangxi, Chongqing, Gansu, Qinghai, Liaoning, Anhui, Shaanxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Inner Mongolia, Hubei, Shanxi, Henan, and Yunnan have mentioned the implementation of paid leave system in their implementation opinions to promote tourism investment and consumption.

For example, in 2021, the General Office of the People's Government of Henan Province issued the "Several Opinions on Further Expanding Consumption", which mentioned the comprehensive implementation of the paid leave system and encouraged flexible leave forms such as phased leave, consecutive leave with statutory holidays, and staggered leave.

Expert: Effectively promoting consumption and forming a healthy supplement for long holidays

In the industry's view, fully implementing the paid leave system helps to safeguard the rights of workers to rest and take leave.

In the relevant documents on promoting consumption issued by the country and local governments, the implementation of paid leave system has been repeatedly mentioned, which is to value the role of paid leave in meeting the leisure needs of Chinese people, changing the centralized travel mode, and driving the tourism economy.

Professor Cao Heping from the School of Economics at Peking University told China News Finance reporters that fully implementing paid leave can effectively promote consumption. "It plays a similar role to the holiday style long vacation, promoting people's tourism and forming a positive supplement with the long vacation."

The research report of Minsheng Securities also mentioned that "having money and leisure" are the most basic conditions in tourism activities, but "leisure" is not enough to restrict the growth of tourism consumption. The promotion of paid leave will significantly increase the proportion of residents traveling.

"The flexibility of paid vacation arrangements helps to stagger traditional peak tourism periods, form staggered tourism, help smooth out the peak tourism season, reduce pressure on scenic spots, and improve the tourism experience, thereby driving the golden week to the golden month, golden season, and even golden year," the above research report pointed out.

Survey: Nearly half of people are not eligible for paid annual leave

Although paid leave is beneficial for driving consumption, Cao Heping also mentioned that in the actual operation process, paid leave has not been well implemented.

From people's feedback, the issues of not taking a day off, not being able to take a day off, and not daring to take a day off are prominent. In addition, "not being able to take a break across the new year" and "shrinking after job hopping" also plague many migrant workers.

In August 2020, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security mentioned in its response to the recommendations of the Third Session of the Thirteenth National People's Congress that in the past three years, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security conducted a survey on the basic situation of human resources and social security in 60 cities. According to the data, about 60% of employees in their units who have implemented a paid annual leave system and meet the conditions for leave can enjoy paid annual leave.

This also means that nearly half of the population cannot enjoy paid annual leave. The main reason given by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security is that there is insufficient promotion of the paid annual leave system and its concept; The vacation of enterprise employees brings about job vacancies and increases labor costs, which affects the initiative of enterprises to implement the paid annual leave system; Some employees are afraid of affecting their employment positions, salary income, and job promotion, and are unwilling to take leave.

Faced with the overall unsatisfactory implementation of paid leave, Su Hainan, a special researcher at the China Labor Association, once stated that on the one hand, it is necessary to smooth relief channels, increase the proactive supervision and accountability of labor supervision departments, enhance employees' awareness of rights protection, and on the other hand, make efforts to improve the system.

The reporter noticed that previously, both national and local levels had introduced measures to strictly implement paid leave.

For example, in 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission and nine other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Improving the Holiday Tourism Travel Environment and Promoting Tourism Consumption", which stated that employers are primarily responsible for implementing the paid annual leave system. The organization department, human resources and social security department shall supervise and inspect the implementation of paid annual leave by employees in accordance with their respective responsibilities.

Nowadays, the comprehensive implementation of the paid annual leave system is once again mentioned, and people also hope to increase the actual implementation of paid leave to play its promoting role in consumption.