The government has cut five collective leave days from this year’s libur schedule, considering that previous spikes in the country’s COVID-19 caseload came right after public holidays.
The decision was made following a meeting with the heads of several ministries today, headed by Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy.
“Previously, there were seven collective leave days [in 2021]. After careful review, the collective leave days schedule has been shortened from seven days to just two days,” Muhadjir said today.
In the initial 2021 holiday schedule, the government marked seven collective leave days close to major religious holidays to give the public longer time off, as has been tradition in previous years.
With the revision, only two collective leave days remain, namely Wednesday, May 12 (a day before Eid al-Fitr), and Friday, Dec. 24 (a day before Christmas).
The government last cut collective leave days for the 2020 Christmas and New Year holidays in a bid to encourage people not to travel and remain at home amid the pandemic. Even so, Indonesia saw record COVID-19 case spikes in the first couple of weeks of 2021.
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