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Annual leave

kalliot
kalliot
Annual leave is paid leave accrued during the employment relationship. At least the employee’s regular salary, including fringe benefits, will be paid during a holiday. The number of days off and the pay during a holiday are calculated on the basis of the Annual Holidays Act and a collective agreement binding the employer.

Frequently asked questions about annual leave

During your employment, you will accrue annual leave for which you are paid. The calendar year is not used for calculating annual leave. Instead, legislation defines a that begins on 1 April and ends on 31 March. The holiday accrued during the holiday entitlement year will be available to you during the following summer and winter.

According to the Annual Holidays Act, you will receive 2.5 weekdays of leave for each month when you are working for a sufficient amount. In the case of full-time employees, annual leave accrues for the months during which they work for at least 14 days. In the case of part-time employees, leave accrues when they work for at least 35 hours in a month. According to legislation, 30 weekdays of annual leave are accrued in the holiday entitlement year when the employment relationship has lasted more than a year.

If your employment relationship has lasted less than a year by the end of the holiday entitlement year, you will receive two weekdays of leave for each holiday entitlement month.

Annual holidays are always rounded up as there are no half annual leave days. Please note that if the annual holiday is accrued from two separate holiday entitlement years, the accrued annual holiday days are first combined and then rounded up.

Most annual leave is taken during the holiday period from 2 May to 30 September. You can either have the remaining days off outside the holiday season or, if agreed, postpone them for later. According to the Annual Holidays Act, you must have an opportunity to express your wishes for the holiday period, but your employer decides on the dates.

You can take your annual holiday on weekdays. These include all the days of the week except Sunday, religious holidays, Independence Day, Christmas Eve, Midsummer Eve, Easter Saturday, and May Day. There are also provisions for other public holidays in collective agreements.

There may be confusion about the accumulation of annual leave in fixed-term employment relationships. In the case of successive fixed-term contracts which continue uninterrupted or with short interruptions, the total duration of all fixed-term contracts is calculated for the employment’s duration when deciding on the amount of annual leave.

Regular absences from work, such as special maternity, maternity, paternity and parental leave, nursing leave, sick leave, layoffs, study leave or job alternation leave, do not interrupt the continuity of the employment relationship. Neither does industrial action break the employment relationship.

You will be paid during your annual holiday. You usually also get a holiday bonus. The holiday bonus is an additional bonus paid on top of your holiday pay, which is 50% of your annual holiday pay. It is paid in addition to the normal holiday pay either before or after the annual leave or in two installments before and after the leave.

The holiday bonus is an additional bonus paid on top of your holiday pay, which is 50% of your annual holiday pay. It is paid in addition to the normal holiday pay either before or after the annual leave or in two installments before and after the leave. The holiday bonus is not based on the Annual Holidays Act, but on a collective agreement, employment contract or workplace practice.

Holiday compensation refers to compensation paid at the end of the employment relationship or when the employee leaves for military service, for example. The holiday compensation compensates for unused holiday days. 

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