If an employee does not complete 9 months and is granted unpaid leave and there are public holidays in between, will these holidays be paid or unpaid?
For example, if an employee is on unpaid leave from Feb 23, 2013 until Feb 27, 2013. Since Feb 25, 2013 and Feb 26, 2013 are public holidays, will these days be considered as paid days or unpaid?

Name withheld
Answer: All the holidays coming within any kind of leave are unpaid holidays. The only difference is that when you take paid leave, all the weekends and holidays coming in the leave are not counted towards the paid leave because this leave is for the working days.
If you take unpaid leave from Feb 23, 2013 to Feb 27, 2013 you will lose 5 days salary. On the other hand if you took the paid leave, only three days (minus Feb 25 and 26) would be deducted from your annual leave entitlement.