In Myanmar, all workers are entitled to not only salary and weekend holidays, but also legally applied leave and holiday benefits. This blog is to explain annual leave, which is one of the legal leave benefits in Myanmar.
According to Myanmar Leave and Holidays Act(1951), Employees who work for over 1 year at a company are entitled to annual leave equal to 10 days of paid leave for a year of work. The employee can take 10 days of continued annual leave or whatever as needed and if the employer agrees, annual leave can be accumulated for up to 3 years.
It is important to note that an employee is entitled to accrue annual leave even if they take 19 days leave during a specific month. If they take 20 or more days leave during a month, then they are not eligible to accrue annual leave for that month.
When calculating the annual leave being utilized by an employee, the law states that any weekends or public holidays that fall between annual leave being taken will also be categorized as annual leave. For example, if an employee takes Wednesday to Tuesday as annual leave, the Saturday and Sunday are also classified as working days and therefore the employee is taking 7 days leave. This is as per the law, however in general practice the majority of companies do not calculate leave in this way.
An employee is entitled to receive any outstanding annual leave balance as a cash payment (or in their salary) if they resign from a company. The most important point to note is that the annual leave is calculated from the starting date of the employee including the probation period.
