萬國法律事務所

Taiwan's Ministry of Labor announced the latest Enforcement Rules of the Labor Standards Act in June, which include 16 amendments to the Articles in the Rules.

Employers and employees now may choose the calculation base for annual paid leave from among five different methods, including the date the employee started working, the calendar year from January 1 to December 31, the fiscal year, the school year, or any date on which employees and employers agree. Whatever method is selected, the annual paid leave cannot be lower than the minimum amount as stipulated in the Law.

Another amendment of note is that in the future, if employees are required to work on their off days, the overtime pay must be at least for four hours. That is, if an employee is required to work on an off day, even if he/she only works for one hour, the employer must pay him/her overtime pay for four hours. Moreover, the overtime work hours for a month must also be calculated as four hours rather than one hour.

The retail and freight industries and gas wholesalers may now apply flexible working hours. This will allow employers to arrange their human resources more freely and they may adjust such arrangements in accordance with their businesses.

There are recent court judgments that hold the opinion that even where an employee files an application for overtime work in advance, the employer must pay the overtime pay as long as the employee works overtime. That is, a violation of internal workplace rules that requires employees to apply for overtime work in advance would not affect the employees’ right to receive overtime pay.