Here is a brief information on annual leave under the labor standards act of Korea.
1. An employee in his first year can use 1 day of annual leave for 1 worked month.
Even if an employee has not completed his first year, he can use annual leave. He can use 1 day of leave if he had worked one full month during the first year.
The following has been deleted from the labor standards act based on the amendment made on November 28, 2017.
However, such annual leave used in advance should be taken out from 15 days of annual leave that the employee will be entitled to after one year. For example, if an employee used 5 months of annual leave in his first year, the next year’s annual leave for him will be 10 days, not 15 days.
As a result, there is no more subtracting the days of leave taken in the first year from the 15 days of leave in the second year.
This change took effect from May 29, 2018. For more information on this change, go to this post.
2. After the first year, the annual leave starts as 15 days.
Once an employee worked for 80% of total working days of the first year, he is entitled to use 15 days’ annual leave during the next one year.
If an employee had less than 80 percent attendance during a year which is not his first year at work, the next year’s leave days are based on the formula of 1 leave day for a fully worked month in the previous year. This calculation method is the same as article 1 of this post.
3. The days of leave increases every two other year from 4th year up to the ceiling of 25 days.
An example can make it easier to understand.
– 1st year: working for 80% of total working days (1 day of leave for one fully worked month that is not subtracted from the 15 days of leave in the 2nd year. Read no. 1 of this post for details.)
– 2nd year: entitled to 15 days’ annual leave
– 3rd year: entitled to 15 days’ annual leave
– 4th year: 16 days’ annual leave
– 5th year: 16 days’ annual leave
– 6th year: 17 days’ annual leave
…
– 22nd year: 25 days’ annual leave
4. An employer does not have to pay wages for unused days of leave if he takes steps of “promotion for use of annual leave.”
If an employee does not use up annual leave for one year, remaining days of unused annual leave do not roll over to the next year. They just expire. However, the employer should still pay wages to the employee for the unused leave.
The employer is exempted from the obligation to compensate for the unused annual leave if following two conditions are met.
First, the employer should inform an employee of the number of leave days unused and sends him a written notice to ask him to submit a plan to use remaining days of leave.
Second, the employee does not submit the leave plan and does not take the leave in spite of such notice.
The notice should be given six months before the annual leave expires. As annual leave can be used within 1 year and supposing that 1 year coincides with a calendar year, such notice would have to be given until the end of September or until October 10th at the latest.
Some foreign companies in Korea allow a rolling over of unused annual leave to next year, which is perfectly OK because the Labor Standards Act, as the minimum standards, do not prohibit employers from applying working conditions better than the law to employees.
Do not look for the article on the compensation for unused leave in the LSA. There is no article for such compensation. It is a concept that was established through court rulings.
5. Last but not least, annual leave is paid leave.
Even if your employees take a leave, you should pay ordinary or average wages for the days of leave. As monthly payment of wages is a usual practice in Korea, this just means you pay them full month’s wages, even if they use annual leave during a certain month.
Dear Admin,
Yesterday my company paid the 2016’s remain vacation days for worker.
But I wonder the way that company had calculated to pay a vacation day.
They used formula : a month salary / 30 days = the paid money per day.
Would you please explain for me is it correct or not ?
Because in my mind, The paid money per day = a month salary / 22 working days. ( minus 8 days weekend of month)
Thank you in advance !
Quoc Nguyen.
Hello. Even if I answered your question, it would be useless because I am just a blogger.
Why don’t you ask the Ministry of Labor and get an answer from the government?
Here is the link to the Q&A board of the Ministry for foreign workers.
http://www.moel.go.kr/english/sai/saiQna.jsp
I used to answer questions from employees but I don’t do that anymore because my aim with thig blog is just to provide general information to ‘managers” of foreign companies. So, answering a specific question from employees is not my role and moreover my answer would not carry any weight even if you show it to your employer. After all, I am not the government responsible for the enforcement of labor law.
Kindly understand my position and good luck :-)
Hi, if the Company decides to provide employees 20 days of annual leave at the start of employment, is the Company still obligated to add 1 more day after every 2 consecutive years of service?
Hi. Yes. The company should still add 1 more day for every 2 consecutive year. It is based on the the labor standards act.
Dear Admin,
I am Software Engineer and working at Gas Detection Company. Number of Employee is around 15 members.
I have just worked 100% full 1st year and now company already renew Contract with me for next year.
In January 2016 is the second year, so Can I take 15 leave days ?
Because I have a plan for Korean New Year and off 8 days. Why does company reduce my salary for 8 days off ?
Would you please help me explain this case ?
Hi. I cannot be 100 percent sure about what happened with reduction of your salary because I do not know the details of your contract. However, based on the labor standards act, you are basically entitled to 15 days of annual leave after first year of service. Why don’t you try the Q&A page of the Ministry of Labor for workers by providing details of your contract. The government website may give you more definite answer. Good luck and Happy New Year!
Hi,
Noted 3. Unused days of leave do not roll over to the next year on a certain condition. If the employer does give a written notice to the employee specifying number of remaining days of annual leave and urging him to use up the leave. Does that mean the annual leave can be carried forward?
For example:
1st year: working for 80% of total working days
No annual leave had been taken by the employee
2nd year: entitled to 15 days’ annual leave
Employee took 10 days annual leave with remaining 5 days.
Question: Please kindly advise whether the remaining 5 days annual leave can be carried forward to 3rd year?
If yes, does that mean in the 3rd year: entitled to 20 days’ annual leave?
Many thanks
Hi.
I checked the post again and found out there was a mistake about annual leave rolling over. The annual leave should be used within one year. There is no rolling over. But an employer still has to pay wages for the unused leave. For details, read the corrected text of Item 3.
Hi, thanks for your advice. Another question, do companies usually administer annual leave via calendar year or service anniversary (that is, service year)?
@apachr Hi. most companies use calendar year for annual leave. That is more convenient when you are dealing with many employees at the same time.
is this leave also applicable to foreigners who r working in korea having E-9-2 visa??
@joshihem As I wrote in other comments, I don’t have a knowledge about Korean visa. Please find the answer from someone else with a relevant expertise :-)
Hi
Understand that this leave rules are implemented rather recently and there were some transition time for companies to adopt to this new rules, may I know when exactly are these rules effective? When was the deadline that companies need to fully adopt to these rules?
Thanks!!
@apachr The new rule for annual leave is linked to the 40 hours workweek as a package. A company covered by 40 hours workweek should implement the new annual leave system. For the schedule of 40 hours workweek, please read my previous post.
hello,
could you advice me the official website for all these information please? Your information is very helpful i have read what i need but since I speak korean, i need some reference from the official web for these information so that i can report to my boss.
thank you so much!!
Hi.
All the information you need can be found on the website of Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor. http://www.moel.go.kr/
The problem is that the website is not organized very well. You will have a hard time finding what you want on the website. But then again, this is the same problem you have with most websites of government institutions of Korea.
Well, in related to the Annual Leave, there is a case that an employee, has resigned from his employment one month before a year completion of his employment contract. Then the employee was complaining to compensate his annual leave with 15 days salary.
The question is:
1. Is he (employee) legally eligible to compensate annual leave by paying accumulate 15 day’s of salary….?
2. Is the employee still has the right to have annual, even he was decided to resigned from the contract before a year contracted…..???
Thank you
let me try to give you a simple answer.
even for an employee who quit after working less than one year, he can have one day of annual leave for each month he worked already. suppose he worked for 11 months and 15 days and quit, then he can have 11 days of paid leave.
Now there are two possibilities.
1. If he keeps working after one year, he will be entitled to 15 days of annual leave that he can use during the 2nd year. Any leave used in the first year (one day leave for one previously worked month) should be subtracted from the 15 days of annual leave for the second year. for example, if a person used 10 days of leave in his first year, the next year, he can only use 5 days of leave, not 15 days.
2. If he quits before he reaches one year and has not used up all the leave, for example he used only 5 days of leave when he could have used 10 days of leave for every worked month, the employer should compensate the employee for unused 5 days. If he did not take the paid leave at all, the employer should compensate for all the unused leave.
Hmm. Really diferent concept with the rest of the countries in Asia. But still wondering: since public holidays (except May 1 and Sunday) are not paid leave, does company have to pay 150% wage rate if overtime is arranged on those public holidays, Or treat it like Saturday (first 8 hours at 100% and any extra at 150%), Or treat it like Sunday (all hours at 150%)? Thanks in advance!
As I said, an employer can grant public holidays as holidays for his employees or not. He can also make them paid or not. Suppose that he grants public holidays to employees as holidays of the company, if an employee work on one of the holidays, he/she should be given 100% as wages for the work he provided, 50% as holiday work allowance. If overtime work arises, then he/she should also be given corresponding overtime allowance.
Hello dear. Some factories allow workers to choose between annual leaves and public holidays. Those that choose to have annual leaves will be given 15 days paid leave, but they have to work on public holidays without overtime compensation. It does not make sense to me. As claimed, there is no specific law pinpoints that public holidays must be paid with overtime if work is performed. How true is this?
You are legally entitled to have annual leave as long as you worked 80 of total working days of a year. Annual leave has nothing to do with having days off or not on public holidays. But you should remember that the only holidays that an employer is forced to give to workers as paid holidays are weekly holiday (usually Sunday) and Worker’s day (May 1). Whether to grant other public holidays as days off to workers or not is totally up to the employer. To make those public holidays as paid holidays or not is also up to the employer. My guess is that your employer has decided not to grant public holidays to his/her employees. No matter what, taking annual leave does not force you to work on other days because annual leave is your legal right.
is this leave also applicable to foreigners who has contract with foreign companies but working in Korea?? For eg, D-9 Visa holder???
In principle, the labor standard act applies to all employees regardless of nationality. However, I cannot give you a good answer as I don’t have a knowledge about D-9 Visa and its implication for labor issues. Sorry :-)
I work at a R & D for a Hagwon, and I only got five days paid vacation. In my first year, I used all five days paid vacation, and took an additional 5 days unpaid leave.
I’m now in my second year, and the company states in my contract that I only have five days paid leave. Is this illegal? Does Korean labor laws supersede this contract?
if you worked for one year, you are entitled to have 15 days of annual leave during the next year. during the first year, you can use, in advance, one annual leave when you have worked one full month, and take them out from calculation for the next year’s leave, which is 15 days. this is all based on the labor standards act and it supersedes contracts with less favorable terms.
if we recalculate the annual leave you can use in the second year, you used 10 days of annual leave in the first year. in the second year, you take that 10 days from 15 days of annual leave that you are legally entitled to have. which means you are still entitled to have 5 days of annual leave.
Now, if your employer insists that the first year contract and the second year contract are not connected and that calculation of annual leave should be made from the scratch, you are still entitled to have annual leave. suppose the employer is right, then for the first year, you worked more than 10 months, ( I guess), then you are entitled to at least 10 days of annual leave.
for the second year, you still can have one days of annual leave for each previously worked month. I don’t know how long your contract will be effective but at the end of February, you can use 2 days of annual leave, at the end of June, you can have 6 days of annual leave and so on. In conclusion, if your second contract is for one year, you will be entitled to have 12 days of annual leave as you will work for 12 months. As for the 12th day of annual leave, as the worker cannot use the leave because there is no remaining days for leave, the employer should make monetary compensation for the final day of annual leave. So, if your second contract is a separate contract from the first year contract, you still can have up to 11 days of annual leave that you can use during your contract, and 1 day of annual leave for which the employer should pay.
I know this is so hopelessly, stupidly complicated. Even Koreans are confused about their annual leave.
Thanks for this info. Is it legal for an employer to ask their employees to take annual leave during a company shutdown? Is forced annual leave allowed in Korean Labor Law?
An employer may ask employees to take annual leave when a company is having financial difficulties and facing imminent shutdown. However, when the company temporarily shutdowns, there is a different article applying to such a case. I reproduce the relevant article of the labor standards act below.
Article 46 (Allowances during Business Suspension)
(1) If business is suspended for reasons attributable to an employer, the employer shall pay a worker allowances equivalent to seventy percent or more of the average wages during the period of suspension. If the amount equivalent to seventy percent or more of the average wages exceeds the ordinary wages, the ordinary wages may be paid as allowances during the business suspension.
(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (1), an employer who is unable to continue business for unavoidable reasons may, upon approval of the Labor Relations Commission, pay allowances for the suspension of business in the amount lower than the standards stipulated in paragraph (1).