For employers, public holidays when employees must work create additional costs, so the number of such days and especially their extension, if a public holiday falls on a weekend, needs to be reconsidered, writes Dienas Bizness.
Many entrepreneurs are saying this, especially in the context of rising labor costs in recent years.
A report by the Latvian Institute of Strategic and Economic Solutions notes that Latvia officially has 12 public holidays, which is in line with the EU average. The most official public holidays are in Croatia, Slovakia, and Malta - 14, while the least are in Germany and the Netherlands - nine.
In the case of Latvia, one more feature must be considered - transferred working days, when the public holidays on November 18 and May 4 fall on a Saturday or Sunday, thus providing an additional day off on a working day. However, for example, in France, the Netherlands, and most regions of Germany, holidays that fall on weekends are not compensated in any way.
In Latvia, the tradition of transferring working days that fall between holidays is a legacy of the Soviet period. In other European countries, in similar situations, workers either use their vacation days or employers voluntarily provide a day off.
Kaspars Gorkšs, the Director General of the Latvian Confederation of Employers, points out that in fact, Latvia has not 12 official holidays, but a total of 16 public holidays - the most in the EU. He reminds that for work on public holidays, including those that fall on weekends, employees are entitled to a surcharge of at least 100%, which costs employers millions of euros additionally.
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