After 18 years, a system concerning the rest and vacation rights of 402 million employees is expected to be updated. Recently, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced at a regular press conference that it will promote the revision of the "Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees" and encourage employers to implement the system. The topic of paid annual leave has once again sparked heated discussions. In China, the right of employees to take paid annual leave can be traced back to the Labor Law promulgated in 1994. On January 1, 2008, the "Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees" officially came into effect. The Implementation Measures for Paid Annual Leave for Enterprise Employees, released in the same year, further refined the rules and thus formed a relatively complete institutional framework. Many employees are afraid to take a break, fearing that it will affect their performance evaluation and promotion. Some companies selectively implement it and take advantage of loopholes in the rules to reduce employees' right to rest. Experts say that identifying and filling gaps, optimizing supply, and enhancing rigidity are the core issues of this regulation revision, making "wanting to take a break but not daring to take a break" truly become "taking all the breaks that should be taken". This is not only a return of rights, but also the key to upgrading the system. Difficulty in landing has always been a pain point in reality. Paid annual leave has been in law for many years, and landing difficulty has always been a pain point in reality. During the interview, many employees expressed their concerns about "one carrot, one pit, worried about colleagues' opinions" and "afraid of affecting performance, evaluation, and promotion". A set of data confirms this dilemma: In 2020, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security mentioned in response to the suggestion of National People's Congress deputies that the popularity of paid annual leave was about 60%, which also means that nearly 40% of employees did not enjoy this statutory right; In December 2024, a survey report on the annual leave system of enterprises released by 51job showed that nearly 70% of workplace workers failed to take their annual leave for the year. Behind the saying 'it's difficult to take a break when there are holidays', there are some companies that selectively implement the system and deliberately exploit loopholes in the rules. Some companies intentionally confuse "accumulated length of service" with "length of service within the company" and "zero out" the past length of service of employees who have switched jobs; Some use statutory holidays such as maternity leave and marriage leave to offset paid annual leave; Some also force the fragmentation and splitting of annual leave, greatly reducing workers' right to rest. How to plug loopholes, refine rules, and compress the "operational space" of employers through the revision of regulations is highly anticipated. Xiao Zhu, Director of the Research Department and Dean of the Law School at the China Institute of Labor Relations, pointed out that controversial issues such as the calculation standards for length of service, vacation deduction rules, cross year vacation arrangements, and the legal effect of waiver of vacation agreements all need to be clarified, refined, and standardized through the revision of regulations. In recent years, there have been increasing suggestions and proposals on improving the paid annual leave system at the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, providing reference for the revision of the system. In response to this, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security proposed to strengthen the feasibility study of raising the standard for paid annual leave. In the view of Shen Jianfeng, the director of the Academic Committee of the Law School of the China Institute of Labor Relations, the revision of the regulations is not a simple addition, but rather a more refined and executable system design that ensures the right of workers to rest and vacation while taking into account the actual production and burden capacity of enterprises, and promotes the true implementation of paid annual leave. The difficulty in implementing paid annual leave for regulatory purposes lies in the insufficient rigidity and weak binding force of the system. The legislative level of the Regulations on Paid Annual Leave for Employees should be elevated to clarify the attributes of paid annual leave as a statutory labor standard right. ”Xiao Zhu suggested. Xiao Zhu noticed that in the relevant documents of some provinces, there is still an expression that "implementing the paid annual leave system is an important social welfare system established by the state", which weakens the legal right attribute of paid annual leave. In addition, Article 10 of the Implementation Measures for Paid Annual Leave for Enterprise Employees stipulates that if an employee requests in writing not to take annual leave due to personal reasons, the employer may only pay their normal working period salary income. These 'ambiguous areas' provide opportunities for enterprises to evade legal obligations and increase the difficulty for workers to protect their rights. After reviewing relevant cases, it was found that the legal attribute determination of paid annual leave pay has long been a controversial focus. In some judgments, the court held that out of 300% of unpaid leave wages, 100% belong to wage income, and the remaining 200% are statutory compensation rather than labor remuneration, subject to a one-year arbitration statute of limitations, calculated from the day of unpaid leave. Shen Jianfeng analyzed that most on-the-job workers are unwilling to have conflicts with their employers and only apply for arbitration after leaving, which can easily exceed the arbitration deadline and lead to the failure of their rights protection. Employers' two-year delay exempts them from responsibility, greatly weakening the punitive power of the system. ”Xiao Zhu spoke frankly. Experts generally suggest that it should be clarified that unpaid annual leave wages belong to labor remuneration and are subject to a special arbitration statute of limitations, calculated from the date of the employee's resignation, in order to lower the threshold for employee rights protection. Strengthening institutional rigidity requires more effective regulation. Xiao Zhu suggested enhancing the initiative and pertinence of labor supervision, and punishing enterprises that refuse to implement the paid leave system in accordance with the law. At the same time, trade unions at all levels should fully utilize their labor law supervision functions to safeguard the rights and interests of employees. Wang Tianyu, Deputy Director of the Social Law Research Office at the Law Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, provided a flexible guidance approach: encouraging enterprises to arrange centralized vacations during the off-season of production, and through fine employment management, allocate manpower reasonably; Incorporate the implementation of the paid leave system into the evaluation indicators for creating harmonious labor relations and evaluating enterprises, and provide incentives such as tax reductions and policy support to enterprises that have implemented it effectively. At this year's provincial-level two sessions, provinces such as Guizhou, Henan, Shandong, and Hubei clearly proposed in their government work reports to implement the system of staggered paid leave for employees, demonstrating the determination of local governments to promote the implementation of paid leave. In recent years, the value of paid vacation has gradually increased. On January 9, 2025, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Measures for Further Cultivating New Growth Points and Prosperous Culture and Tourism Consumption", which proposed to unleash the consumption potential of employees and "encourage units and employees to combine paid annual leave with traditional festivals and local characteristic activities, and arrange staggered leave". Holidays can unleash the consumption potential of workers and achieve a virtuous cycle of the economy. ”Shen Jianfeng calculated an employment account: the annual working hours of each worker are approximately 248 days. Taking the shortest 5 days of paid leave as an example, 50 workers' paid leave can free up one job opportunity for one worker. The concept of "investing in people" has been repeatedly mentioned from the proposal of the 15th Five Year Plan to the Central Economic Work Conference in 2025. In Wang Tianyu's view, paid vacation is the concrete practice of this concept. Ensuring the right to rest is beneficial for the physical and mental health of workers, better realizing diverse social values, and promoting comprehensive human development. With the rapid development of new business models, whether workers in new forms of employment should enjoy the right to paid annual leave has become an important topic that cannot be avoided in this regulation revision. Beijing ride hailing driver Mr. Guo said that he also wants to take a vacation, but when driving a ride hailing service, he is too tired to stop. Once he takes a break, it means he has no income. In Xiao Zhu's view, the paid leave guarantee for workers in the new employment form mainly faces three difficulties: the diversity of employment subjects, the ambiguity of responsibility boundaries, and the difficulty in clarifying the responsibility subjects for leave guarantee; Income is linked to working hours, and taking leave means a decrease in income, which objectively affects the willingness to take leave; The distribution of workers is scattered, it is difficult to provide evidence, and it is difficult to protect their rights. In this regard, Xiao Zhu suggests providing a tiered and classified protection plan: new forms of employment workers who meet the requirements of labor relations are entitled to paid annual leave in accordance with the law; Employees who do not fully comply with the establishment of labor relations shall establish leave rules that are linked to their working hours and continuity on the platform. Shen Jianfeng stated that the employment methods for new forms of employment in China are complex and diverse, and it is highly unlikely that the revised regulations will specifically design general rules for new forms of employment workers. (New Society)