Government proposes additional holiday benefits for civil servants

The Executive Council (ExCo) proposed that civil servants should not need to notify their departments in advance to take annual leave, spokesman Leong Heng Teng announced at a press conference yesterday. The council has concluded their discussion of the draft of the amendment to the public administration staff regulation.

Currently, civil servants are obliged to notify their departments eight days in advance regarding their annual leave.

Civil servants who have worked for six months in the first year of their service can enjoy annual leave in advance in the subsequent six months.

The new amendment also grants more rights to civil servants regarding the transfer of leave between different years.

Currently, the public administration employee regulations allow civil servants to transfer a maximum of 11 days of their annual leave to another year. The new law proposes a maximum of 33 days to be transferrable.

However, the new policy can only be applied if civil servants were unable to take annual leave due to work reasons, not due to personal reasons.

If a civil servant wishes to transfer annual leave for personal reasons, a maximum of 11 days’ leave will remain transferrable instead of the expanded 33 days.

The amendment also grants more benefits to civil servants regarding sick leave. Under the draft amendment, a civil servant who takes 15 days of sick leave or fewer will not see a reduction in their salary; but if a civil servant takes between 16 and 30 days of sick leave, then 50 percent of their salary for the corresponding number of absent days will be deducted.

The draft includes the adjustment of shift work regulations, suggesting a rest period of a minimum of 10 hours between each shift.

The shifts must be changed at least once every month, and for every four weeks of shiftwork, the civil servants must have at least one day off on a Saturday or a Sunday.

Civil servants will be compensated for working on a public holiday, or if their day off from their shift work period overlaps with a public holiday.

Fine introduced over employment agencies’ infractions

THE EXCO also announced a draft law regarding employment agencies, proposing that an employment agency should charge a maximum of 50 percent of the monthly salary of a job seeker (later referred to as an employee) as a service fee. The service fee should be collected within 60 days from the date that the employee entered into an employment relationship with an employer. Each employment agency should have at least one employment instructor, according to the new draft. The draft also bans employment agencies from providing services to those who live in Macau but are not Macau residents, further proposing fines against agencies that engage in illegal conduct. The acting director of the Labour Affairs Bureau, Chan Un Tong, said yesterday, during a press conference, that until the end of October, Macau had a total of 148 employment agencies, with 141 of these charging for their services. Chan also reported that, in 2017, approximately 40 infractions by employment agencies were recorded, with the majority of these cases concerning agencies that introduced jobs to non-residents.