00:00Taiwan can have a pretty intense work culture.
00:03People here work between 10 to 20 percent more than people in Europe and North America.
00:07So many will be happy to know about a new law that just passed that will give workers
00:10more days off.
00:12The bill adds four extra public holidays every year and extends Labor Day to public sector
00:16employees who previously didn't get that day off.
00:20Those holidays include the day before Lunar New Year's Eve, Confucius' birthday, Constitution
00:24Day and Retrocession Day, which celebrates the end of Japanese rule in Taiwan and its
00:29transferred to ROC control.
00:32These aren't new holidays, but ones the Taiwanese workers didn't previously get off.
00:35And many that we talked to on the streets today were very happy about this.
00:38I think that the rest of the day is very important.
00:42Because we usually are busy with working, and if the rest of the day can make their life
00:48better.
00:49To increase new lives, it is a very good thing for the employees.
00:53We can spend more time with the families, and spend a lot of time on vacation.
00:59But online, Constitution Day and Retrocession Day have caused some controversy, with some
01:03people saying they're a celebration of Taiwan's authoritarian era under controversial former
01:08leader Chiang Kai-shek.
01:09They say there are other holidays that could have been chosen.
01:11Regardless of which days they fall on, these extra holidays are set to give Taiwanese workers
01:17more time off, marking a notable shift in Taiwan's approach to work-life balance.
01:21Fu Hua Hung, Peng Xu, and Keynes Kuranta for Taiwan Plus.
01:24Speaker 1
01:33R
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