Pursuant to the labour law, the normal working hours of Employees must not exceed 08 hours/day and 48 hours/week. In cases where Employers specify weekly working hours, the normal working hours must not exceed 10 hours/day and 48 hours/week[1]. Therefore, the regulation of 12 working hours/day for Employees is not consistent with the law. If any Employer requires Employees to work more than the said normal working time (12 hours/day), such Employer is obliged to pay Employees more salaries for extra working hours[2].
In practice, the labour law on overtime working is often flexible and aims to assist Employers in addressing their production and business needs during peak seasons. Therefore, even if Employers accept overtime salaries for Employees, Employers may not set out a working time of 12 hours/day as a fixed frame of normal working hours for Employees. Because when arranging overtime work, Employers must meet the following conditions:
- Obtain the consent by Employees;
- Ensure that any Employee’s overtime is no more than 50% of the normal working hours/day; if the weekly working hours are applied, the total number of regular working hours and overtime hours are no more than 12 hours/day or 30 hours/ month or 200 hours/year, except for a number of special cases prescribed by the Government, which allows no more than 300 overtime hours/year; and
- After each overtime period of consecutive days in a month, Employers shall arrange compensatory leave for Employees in line with the amount of untaken leave.
[1]Article 104 Labor Code
[2]Article 97 Labor Code