Public holidays and statutory holidays in Hong Kong are holidays designated by the Government of Hong Kong. They allow workers rest from work, usually in conjunction with special occasions.
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Public holidays
The 17 public holidays (Chinese: 公眾假期), also called Bank Holidays (Chinese: 銀行假期), are set by the General Holidays Ordinance.
Under the administration of the United Kingdom prior to 1997, the Queen's Birthday was a public holiday observed in the second Monday of June. It was replaced by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day after the transfer of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China. Similarly, Commonwealth Day was a school holiday prior to the transfer of sovereignty, as is the birthday anniversary of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. The anniversary of the liberation of Hong Kong (Chinese: 重光紀念日) was observed on the last Monday in August, and the preceding day was also observed as anniversary of the victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the transfer of sovereignty, the two public holidays were replaced with Labour Day and the National Day of the People's Republic of China.
According to Hong Kong laws, when a designated public holiday falls on a Sunday or on the same day of another holiday, the immediate following weekday would be a public holiday. However, there are exceptions; for example, as Lunar New Year 2007 falls on a Sunday (18 February), the government have designated the Saturday directly before (17 February) as a public holiday. However, this does not apply to Saturdays, and when a non-statutory public holiday falls on a Saturday, the public holiday is lost to people that do not work on Saturdays.
Statutory holidays
According to the Employee Ordinance of the Labour Legislation, 12 of the 17 public holidays are compulsory for employers to give to the employees. These 12 holidays are known as statutory holidays (Chinese: 法定假期), labour holidays (Chinese: 勞工假期), or factory holidays (Chinese: 工廠假期).
If an employer states in the employment contract that its employees are only allowed to take statutory holidays, it is legal to require the employees to work on public holidays that are not statutory holidays (i.e. Good Friday, the day following Good Friday, Easter Monday, Buddha's Birthday and the day following Christmas) without salary or leave compensations.
Traditionally, statutory holidays are an entitlement associated with blue-collar jobs in fields such as manufacturing, construction, textiles and clothing, repairing, mass media, security, cleaning, transportation, logistics, distribution, retailing, catering, labourer, hotel and customer service. But in recent years, certain white-collar jobs and government contract staff are also entitled to statutory holidays only.
The Government has, by legislation, designated 3 September 2015, The 70th anniversary day of the victory of the Chinese people's war of resistance against Japanese aggression, on a one-off basis as an additional Statutory Holiday and General Holiday for 2015.
Off-in-lieu for statutory holidays
In general, if a statutory holiday falls on the employee's rest day, the employer is committed to giving a day off-in-lieu at a following day which isn't the employee's rest day. For example, under the 5-day work week system, if a statutory holiday falls on a Saturday, the employee can be entitled to a day off-in-lieu. This is not true for non-statutory public holidays which are lost to people that do not work on Saturday.