Annual leave is paid leave that is accrued in an employment relationship. Annual leave is usually divided into summer and winter leave, and the leave is paid with salary and holiday pay. Working time reduction days, so-called pekkaspäivät, are paid leave. In most of the AKT collective agreements, employees accrue holiday days, and they are a benefit negotiated for employees in the sector.
A holiday qualifying month is a calendar month during which the employee has accrued at least 14 working days or days equivalent to working days. This 14-day rule is primary. It is generally applied to full-time employees..
If an employee works so infrequently under the employment contract that the 14-day rule is not met or only some of the calendar months contain 14 working days, an hour-based rule is used. In that case, a holiday qualifying month is considered to be a calendar month during which at least 35 working hours or hours equivalent to working hours referred to in Section 7 of the Annual Leave Act have been accrued. The 35-hour rule is generally applied to part-time employees.
Based on these rules, an employee’s full annual leave is normally 30 days of holiday in the holiday qualifying year.
The granting of annual leave is regulated in the Annual Leave Act. The starting point is that the employer must grant 24 days of the accumulated annual leave during the holiday period from 2 May to 30 September, i.e. during the summer holiday. If less than 24 days of holiday have been accumulated, that holiday must also be granted during that period.
The part of the accumulated leave exceeding 24 days must be granted before the start of the next holiday period, i.e. between holiday periods. This part of the annual leave is called winter holiday, and it is usually six days long.
The employee and the employer can freely agree on splitting the annual leave, i.e. granting it in smaller periods. However, 12 holiday days must always be granted continuously.
Working time reduction days (pekkaspäivät) reduce annual working hours and are part of the collective agreement in sectors where the typical weekly working hours are 40 hours or a total of 80 hours in two-week periods.
Working time reduction days (pekkaspäivät) are paid days off. They are used as full days off. In most agreement sectors, they must be granted by the end of the year following the accrual year. In many sectors, working time reduction days accrue 18 or 19 days per year, and in this case there is no separate weekday holiday compensation.
An employee is entitled to family leave when a child is born or adopted into the family. These days off are negotiated in collective agreements.
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