Employment Law - Problem With Working 5 Day Weeks and the Cathay Pacific Case

If you are an employer in Hong Kong and your employees work 5 day week, whenever there's a public holiday on a Saturday, do you give them the following Monday off? If not, you may have breached the employment laws in Hong Kong.

Apart from contractual annual leave, every employee in Hong Kong is entitled to (i) a minimum of 1 rest day in every period of 7 days in addition to any statutory or alternative or substituted holiday pursuant to Section 17 of the Hong Kong Employment Ordinance ("Ordinance"); and (ii) 12 statutory holidays stipulated in Section 39(1) of the Ordinance, such as Lunar New Year’s Day, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (i.e. 1 July) and National Day on 1 October.