73.5 pct of employees receive paid annual leave: survey

BEIJING -- About 73.5 percent of surveyed people said that they received paid annual leave, while 21.9 percent people said they did not have paid days off.

The survey, conducted among 1,997 employers, was published in Tuesday's edition of the China Youth Daily.

According to a regulation on paid annual leave, which was made effective in 2008, employers who work consecutively more than one year should receive paid days off.

In the survey, 64.9 percent of correspondents said that their employers asked them to use their paid annual leave within a year, and if they did not, their paid vacation would expire.

Wen Chenjing, a member of the labor relations research committee of the Shanghai Bar Association, said that there is no legal basis for employers to reset paid annual leave after a year.

National legal annual leave can be spent after a year, while extra vacation allowed by employers could expire in accordance with company regulations, said Wen.

In response to a question about how to implement the regulation on paid annual leave, 42.2 percent of surveyed people hoped to increase supervision and punish violators, and 20.7 percent of people hoped to improve laws and regulations.