{"id":811123,"date":"2025-02-17T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=811123"},"modified":"2025-02-17T16:27:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T14:27:25","slug":"public-holiday-rule-in-south-africa-can-get-you-other-days-off-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/811123\/public-holiday-rule-in-south-africa-can-get-you-other-days-off-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Public holiday rule in South Africa can get you other days off work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Public Holidays Act allows employees to exchange a public holiday for any other day agreed to between an employer and employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This clause in the Public Holidays Act of 1994 is not well known, and very few employees take advantage of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has twelve public holidays, which start with New Year\u2019s Day on 1 January and end with Boxing Day on 26 December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cDays to be observed as public holidays\u201d part of the Act states that whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most South Africans are well aware that they will get a day off work, even if the public holiday falls on a Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, few people are aware of the second part of the Act’s \u201cDays to be observed as public holidays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It states that \u201cany public holiday shall be exchangeable for any other day which is fixed by agreement or agreed to between an employer and employee\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, an employee who doesn\u2019t want to take a certain public holiday has the right to request paid leave on another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted that the employee should reach an agreement with his employer regarding the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act states that employers cannot require employees to work on public holidays and must pay their normal wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means an employee can request to work on a public holiday in exchange for another day off work and receive full pay on that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This proposal is partly based on the need to treat South Africans of different religions equally regarding public holidays and days off work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two main Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, are declared as paid public holidays in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People from other religions who celebrate other faith-based holidays could be disadvantaged as their holidays are not declared public holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, South Africans with other faiths do not have an automatic benefit of pay on those days they take off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the public holiday exchange provision in the Act gives non-Christian employees the right to request paid leave on another day instead of Good Friday or Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most employers in South Africa are fine with such a request and are very tolerant towards people of different religions in the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public Holidays Act: Days to be observed as public holidays<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

(1) The days mentioned in Schedule 1 shall be public holidays, and whenever any public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (1), any public holiday shall be exchangeable for any other day which is fixed by agreement or agreed to between an employer and employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Public Holidays Act allows employees to exchange a public holiday for any other day agreed to between an employer and employee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":811127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[4776,9677,21687],"class_list":["post-811123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-christmas","tag-easter","tag-public-holidays-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811131,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811123\/revisions\/811131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}