A recently passed law gives Taiwanese workers four extra public holidays. Labor Day will also be extended to public sector employees, who previously didn't get that day off. Workers who spoke to TaiwanPlus were happy about the news, saying that rest is important. But the choice of holidays has also garnered criticism online, with some saying they harken back to Taiwan's authoritarian period.
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00:00Taiwan can have a pretty intense work culture.
00:03People here work between 10 to 20 percent more than people in Europe and North America.
00:07So many will be happy to know about a new law that just passed that will give workers
00:10more days off.
00:12The bill adds four extra public holidays every year and extends Labor Day to public sector
00:16employees who previously didn't get that day off.
00:20Those holidays include the day before Lunar New Year's Eve, Confucius' birthday, Constitution
00:24Day and Retrocession Day, which celebrates the end of Japanese rule in Taiwan and its
00:29transferred to ROC control.
00:32These aren't new holidays, but ones the Taiwanese workers didn't previously get off.
00:35And many that we talked to on the streets today were very happy about this.
00:38I think that the rest of the day is very important.
00:42Because we usually are busy with working, and if the rest of the day can make their life
00:48better.
00:49To increase new lives, it is a very good thing for the employees.
00:53We can spend more time with the families, and spend a lot of time on vacation.
00:59But online, Constitution Day and Retrocession Day have caused some controversy, with some
01:03people saying they're a celebration of Taiwan's authoritarian era under controversial former
01:08leader Chiang Kai-shek.
01:09They say there are other holidays that could have been chosen.
01:11Regardless of which days they fall on, these extra holidays are set to give Taiwanese workers
01:17more time off, marking a notable shift in Taiwan's approach to work-life balance.
01:21Fu Hua Hung, Peng Xu, and Keynes Kuranta for Taiwan Plus.
01:24Speaker 1
01:33R