The Prime Minister’s Department has issued the official public holiday calendar, both Federal and State holidays for next year, 2025.
This calendar will assist all HR practitioners and business owners with their annual announcement on public holidays. Since HR practitioners would usually issue a company-wide memo for this, we have broken down some key points for your further consideration:
Minimum public holidays under the Employment Act 1955
Employers are required to observe a minimum of eleven (11) public holidays in a year, five (5) of which are non-replaceable as provided for under s.60D of the Employment Act 1955. The remaining public holidays can be selected by employers. Employers are advised to stipulate which public holidays are observed for the year 2025 to avoid any contentions that all public holidays would be observed by default.
Public holidays falling on a non-working day
Please be informed that if a public holiday falls on an employee’s rest day, the law provides that the next immediate working day shall be the substituted public holiday.
It is also important to note that if an employee has more than one (1) rest day in a week, then the later rest day shall be recognized as the official one for this purpose. This means that if an employee observes a Monday – Friday work week, any public holidays falling on a Sunday shall automatically be substituted to the next working day, i.e. Monday. Whereas public holidays falling on a Saturday need not be substituted.
Requiring employees to work on a public holiday
Employees can be requested to work on a public holiday. There are 2 different scenarios which are applicable here:
Non-replaceable public holidays There are 5 non-replaceable public holidays and if employees are required to work on any of these public holidays, then they must be paid public holiday rates based on the Employment Act 1955 (*only applicable to employees who are entitled to payments under the Employment Act 1955)
Replaceable public holidays As for the remaining days, employees can be required to work and be given another day as a substituted public holiday. In this situation, payment of public holiday rate is not needed. For example, if an employee is required to work on 25th December (Christmas Day), he can be given a substituted holiday on another day, in which case, his work on Christmas Day is considered as a normal day’s work.
Suddenly declared public holidays
This category is not part of the listing (in the public holiday calendar) and is normally announced either by the Federal or State government as and when necessary. The simplified legal position would be:
Federal announcements: Declared under s.8 of the Holidays Act 1951 and is compulsory to observe.
State announcements: Declared under s.9 of the Holidays Act 1951 and is only compulsory if employers observe ALL public holidays in a calendar year.
As a matter of best practice, employers who are not willing to cater to all suddenly declared public holidays should have a specific provision mentioning so.
Suggestions for your memo
State the number of public holidays your company will be observing next year
Provide the list of public holidays together with dates
Identify if any of the holidays will be substituted, if so, plan your communications early
Determine if you’d like to observe suddenly declared holidays declared by the State. If you don’t intend to do so, please ensure you have a clause stating so or requiring employees to wait for updates on such holidays
If you require a sample memo from us, kindly be in touch with Victor Gan (victor@ed3n.com.my) or Alya Ariffin (alya@ed3n.com.my). We are also happy to assist if you have further questions on this topic. Please click on this link to download the official public holiday calendar for year 2025. Official Holiday Calendar Year 2025 :
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