Like the recent holiday Christmas, New Year’s fell on calendar days of ordinary rest. But, suddenly, the Executive Branch declared for decree the monday january 2 from 2023 as nonworking for “full family enjoyment” of the holiday, adding a fifth holiday a month. But does this also benefit the economy?
On December 30, the day the Executive Power declared January 2 non-labor, the economist and member of the opposition party Fuerza del Pueblo, Haivanjoe Ng Cortiñas, published on his Twitter account: “By declaring nonworking the monday january 2almost 2.3 million informal workers who receive an average income of RD$952.0 a day, they will not produce a peso that day, therefore, 50.0% of the workers will be harmed”.
According to studies, the effects of holidays are different depending on the productive sector. It has been claimed that, in the manufacturing industry, one additional working day per month generates an increase in production by 3.4%unless that month is Decemberin which case the effect is less due to a decrease in the sector’s own production at that time of the year.
A study published in Argentina concluded that an additional working day, which means one day holiday least, it does not have a statistically significant impact on the gross domestic product (GDP), both in the short and long term.
It was only observed that, in the long term, although national holidays show a negative and significant impact on real GDP, this effect is very small and less than 1%.
The beneficiaries
There are sectors that are most benefited when there are non-working days such as commercial and hotel days.
In a document defending the Law 130-97 on the transfer of holidays, the Association of Hotels and Tourism Tourism of the Dominican Republic (asonahores) indicated that when holidays are moved to Monday, the productive week is not interrupted.
He argued that the days consecutive holidays they allow better time planning for the economy, in addition to encouraging tourism.
“Companies, businesses and society also benefit from this economic planning, reduce work absenteeism and promote domestic tourism and the rest of the people”, expressed the union.
The fact that the Ministry of Labor Anticipate the non-working days of each year in advance, it allows a planning of the productive sectors so that they do not affect their finances.
The non-working days that could affect are the unexpected.
In an analysis that Cortiñas had previously published in a Dominican newspaper, he wrote that those declared non-work that become bridges and become non-work unofficially, generate a negative effect on the economy, due to the costs that it implies for employers in a scenario of non-productive activity, and in the same way it happens with the days that are declared a labor strike or stoppage.
