This has happened many times in the past, but after the next fiscal year's holidays and paid vacation days have been set, changes or additions are suddenly announced for various reasons. Once again, the government's decision to make August 18th a holiday has been announced. Initially, it was decided to make it a ``Holiday Libur Nasional'', but in the end it was changed to ``Cuti Bersama, a day when all paid holidays are encouraged to be taken at the same time.'' The reason for this was that August 17th, Independence Day, falls on a Sunday, so it would not be possible to celebrate as much as we should, but we already knew that August 17th was a Sunday when we created the holiday. I'm sure many of you are wondering why this is happening now, but this has happened many times before. I don't know if it's just a whim, a deep plan, or they just don't realize that making the change would be a nuisance to the company in the first place, but it's a real nuisance for Japanese companies that make good plans and take action in the first place.
By the way, what is the difference between a holiday and a day when all paid holidays are encouraged?

[What you can and cannot do on holidays]

Holidays are days when you must take a day off. We generally do not change the date because it has a special meaning on that day. Weekly holidays may be substituted due to work circumstances, but public holidays are usually not substituted. However, work days are decided by agreement between labor and management, so if labor and management agree, the government will not consider it to be a violation and punish it.
If a public holiday is suddenly announced like this, there are many chances that some employees will have to come to work due to work reasons. Since this work is overtime, it is necessary to pay overtime wages, and if too many employees have to come to work, the cost will increase significantly. Overtime wages for 8 hours of work on holidays are approximately 2 days (15.5 hours) of regular work. Suddenly making a public holiday like this one was a huge blow to the company, and many companies must have complained to the government.

[What you can and cannot do on days when you are encouraged to take paid leave all at once]

On the other hand, a day to encourage all employees to take annual paid leave is a day on which all employees are encouraged to take annual paid leave together. In other words, it is not necessary to set a date for all paid holidays to be taken at the same time, but it is simply recommended that you set one. Therefore, it is up to labor and management to decide whether or not to make the day on which employees are encouraged to take paid leave all at once. However, this day is the day when all government-run companies and civil servants take paid leave, so it is a holiday for government agencies and a holiday for the central bank, so it may be difficult to work depending on your job.
Independence Day is special for Indonesia, and independence ceremonies are held in government offices and schools. This will not be moved to a weekday, so it will always be held on August 17th. This means that employees will have to work on Sundays, and they will not be able to take weekends off. I guess that's why I came up with the idea of ​​setting August 18th as a holiday. However, the ceremony has been held on August 17th since Indonesia's independence, and I can't help but wonder why it's so urgent now.