12/03/2017
12/03/2017
Kindly advise, can our company force us to take our leave salary on completion of one year? For example after working for one year and taking leave encashment, we go on leave say for 1 month in which there will be no payment for that month. In case there are public holidays in between will it be deducted as part of salary deductions? Let us say I go on leave on April 2, 2017 and return to work on May 1, 2017. There is a public holiday on April 24, 2017. In this case, my company will not pay me full month’s salary as I was given my leave encashment in April though I did not ask for it. In addition, they did not pay me for April 24, which was a public holiday. I need your feedback on how the calculation should be done. Name withheld Answer: According to the current Kuwait Labor Law every employee is entitled to get 30 days paid leave in a year. This means that you will not work for 30 days but you would be paid for those days. It is therefore not correct to assume that you were not paid for the month that you were on holidays. It must be noted that in the 30 days leave, the one weekly off day per week is not counted. This is in addition to official holidays falling within this leave. To calculate your leave salary, the 30 days have to be first divided by 26 (working days in a month) and then multiplying the result by your monthly salary. If you don’t have immediate use of your leave salary nothing prevents you from instructing your accounts department to pay the same into your bank account. The issue of you being forced to encash your leave salary doesn’t arise here since it is your entitlement. It is only when the company fails to live up to its obligation that one can say there is a problem and hence seeks remedy.