China Declares May 1 to May 7 as Golden Week Public Holiday

Source: Shanghai Daily. China's State Council announced today that employees in China will enjoy a week long holiday from May 1 to May 7, 2007, for Labor Day. To compensate, though, they will have to work the preceding weekend days of Saturday and Sunday, April 28-29, 2007. Anyone having to work on any the first three days of the "golden week" will be paid at an overtime rate of 3 times his/her normal salary.

Analysis: China launched three golden weeks from 1999, to extend to a full week, its three, 3-day long public holidays, which are Lunar New Year, May Day and National Day (October 1st). Today's announcement is interesting, as there had been many calls, from Chinese officials, to do away with the concept of Golden Weeks, either because of the traffic chaos they cause (our news story of December 25, 2006) or because these extra days would be best used for more traditional Chinese holidays such as Lunar New Year's Eve, the Lantern Festival, Qingming, the Dragon-Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival (our news story of March 2, 2007).