SA’s public holidays raise lively debate

Does SA have too many public holidays? According to a highly inaccurate report recently in the Citizen newspaper, we do. “For a nation that should be striving for economic progress to alleviate poverty and create jobs, South Africa has too many public holidays,” it said. Adding insult to injury, it quoted Olivier Barbeau, chief operating officer of BDO SA – a regional association of accounting firms. He argued that we needed fewer public holidays, but then got all the figures in his argument totally wrong. He said: “South Africans typically enjoy 13 paid public holidays a year. This, on the face of it, is comparable to other countries like the US, France and Singapore. But can we afford it? “SA is still a developing economy with significantly high levels of unemployment. We have to compete globally with countries like China who have only four public holidays and this results in the erosion of the little global competitiveness we have.” But SA actually has 12 public holidays, whereas the US has 10, and France and Singapore 11 each. His statement that China is public holiday-impoverished is also inaccurate, with that country also actually having 11. The argument about public holidays has been to the fore ever since the doubledreadful year of 2009. This was part of the 2008/2009 global economic crisis, a crisis that was exacerbated in SA by the fact that the Easter public holidays all fell in April – which also already had Family Day and Freedom Day – and May 1 as Workers’ Day. With huge numbers of employees taking a day or two of leave on either side of these public holidays, April turned out to be happy holiday month, and added to the economic woe in SA. But, when the public holidays are more evenly spread, as this year, does SA have an unacceptably-high number of added days off? Not really, according to a quick FTW phone-around. Four executives in the freight industry all suggested that it would be great if employees, like machines, could work 365 days a year. But all also accepted that SA’s annual holiday entitlement plus public holidays were necessary for staff health and welfare, and that this country’s levels of holidays were quite reasonable. So, on the global scene, is SA public holiday-enriched or -impoverished? According to data from the major human resource consultancy, Mercer, SA is in the middle of the public holiday league comprising the 62 countries around the globe surveyed for its Worldwide Benefit and Employment Guidelines. We are ranked at that level along with Bolivia, Greece, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Russia – all with 12 public holidays. Above us, and alone at number one in the league is Colombia, with 18 public holidays. Lebanon, India, Malaysia and Thailand all have 16. The Philippines, South Korea, Slovakia, Japan and Cyprus all have 15. With 14 public holidays are Malta, Spain, Morocco, Chile and Indonesia. With an odd 13.5 is Turkey, and with 13 are Austria, Portugal, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Taiwan. Below SA and its fellow 12-dayers are the remaining 31 countries in the survey – ranging down through 11, 10, 9 to 8 public holidays, a bottom spot shared by the UK, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovenia. INSERT ‘SA is in the middle of the public holiday league comprising the 62 countries around the globe.’