Samsung Electronics to Take One Day Off Monthly Without Using Annual Leave... Establishes 'Mid-Month Holiday' (Comprehensive)

New 'Mid-Month Day Off' Introduced from This Month
Mandatory Monthly Working Hours Must Be Met... Overtime Unavoidable

Samsung Electronics will introduce a once-a-month mid-month day off system starting this month.

On the 13th, Samsung Electronics announced that from this month, following labor-management consultations, employees who meet the monthly required working hours (160-168 hours) will be able to take one day off each month under the newly established "mid-month day off" system.

Accordingly, all Samsung Electronics employees, except for production workers on the 4-shift 3-team system, will be able to take a day off on the Friday of the week that includes the 21st, the monthly payday. This system will be first implemented on the 23rd. The name of the day off differs by division: in the Device Experience (DX) division, it is called "Development Day," and in the Semiconductor (DS) division, it is called "Family Day."

For example, employees who can fulfill the monthly required working hours of 160-168 hours this month can simply report to their department head that they wish to take the day off and rest on the 23rd. However, to use the mid-month day off, overtime work is expected to be unavoidable. Taking one day off reduces the working hours for the month by 8 hours. If employees arrive and leave work on time every day, they cannot meet the required monthly working hours. They need to work an additional 8 hours to be eligible to use the mid-month day off.

The mid-month day off was agreed upon during the labor-management wage negotiations from March to May. The labor-management council proposed the idea first, and the company accepted it. The labor-management council is a body where employer representatives and employee representatives negotiate working conditions such as wages. In this council, welfare measures were also agreed upon, including allowing up to three days of mandatory annual leave (compulsory use leave) to be carried over to the following year.

Meanwhile, the growing emphasis on work-life balance (WLB) among MZ generation employees appears to have influenced the introduction of this system. It is also reported that one of the reasons for establishing this system was the competitor SK Hynix’s "Happy Friday" system, which has been in operation since August last year, allowing employees who have worked more than 80 hours over two weeks to take the third Friday of each month off without using annual leave.