Full payment by employers for maternity leave to start from May 26

Employers will be obligated to pay salaries in full during their employees’ maternity leaves from May 26, as government subsidization will come to an end on the previous day.

The length of maternity leave was increased from 56 days to 70 days following the promulgation of the amended Labour Relations Law on May 26, 2020. Alongside the extension, a provision on transitional arrangements also started taking effect.

The provision states that in the first three years of the promulgation of the amended law, the government would issue up to 14 days of salary to eligible local employees. Under this arrangement, employers were only required to pay 56 days of salary, meaning there would be no change to their responsibilities in the first three years.

As the transitional period will end on May 25, employers are reminded to pay the salary of 70-day maternity leave to employees who have worked in the company for over a year while giving birth or fitting the definitions as stated in Clauses 5 and 6 of Article 54 of the amended law.

Employees giving birth or fitting the aforementioned definitions and eligible for maternity leave on or before May 25 will still be eligible to apply for the salary subsidy from the Social Security Fund within 120 days of their labor or the occurrence of the conditions as stated in the aforementioned clauses.

The government explained that the transitional arrangement was implemented to ease immediate impacts on employers.