Starting this year, overtime pay for working on public holidays and weekends will decrease slightly, according to the latest payment calculation method released by China Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS).

The MLSS has revised the provisions for calculating average working hours and pay conversion for the whole year and each month. The new provisions clarify the two concepts of "institutional working day" and "institutional pay day", noted Jiang Junlu, chairman of the Beijing Labor Law and Social Security Law Society.

According to the new provision, the number of institutional work days will be 250 days, that is, 365 days in one year minus 104 weekend days and 11 days of public holidays. The institutional pay day will be 261 days, which is 365 days minus 104 weekend days for one year.

Jiang analyzed that the "institutional working day" is the standard to determine overtime work and it aims at the management of working hours, while the "institutional pay day" is used to calculate daily pay and overtime pay.

With public holidays increased to 11 days from the previous 10 days, the number of institutional working days is now 20.83 days per month, while the number of institutional pay days becomes 21.75 days per month, both of which were 20.92 days before.

The base of overtime pay per day comes out by dividing the monthly pay by 21.75 days.

Jiang emphasized that, when calculating overtime pay, the "monthly pay" mentioned above should be the salary promised in the labor contract; otherwise, the overtime pay should be determined according to the promised overtime pay base or the related standard in the contract. If no such promise can be found in the labor contract, the "monthly salary" is the average monthly pay of the previous 12 months.

Take the average monthly salary of 3,008 yuan per month in Beijing for example, if an employee worked overtime for all seven days of the Spring Festival holiday, he or she will get three times the pay during the first three days of the public holiday, that is, 3,008 yuan divided by 21.75 days and multiplied by 300% for each day, and twice the pay for the others four days of two weekends, that is, 3,008 yuan divided by 21.75 days and multiplied by 200% for each day. Thus, the total overtime pay would be 2351.1 yuan, a decrease of about 3.8% compared to before.

One duty employee of the MLSS confirmed to the reporter that MLSS will not revise the pay calculation method temporarily, and such method for employees in Beijing will be automatically updated in accordance with the newly released provision.