An employee’s working time shall not exceed 8 hours per day or 48 hours per week. If the nature of work may harm the employee’s health and safety, working time must not exceed 7 hours per day or 42 hours per week.
An employee must have at least 1 day holiday in a week and at least 1 hour resting time after working continuously for 5 hours in a day.
Generally, an employer should not require an employee to work on a holiday. However, this is possible in emergency works or the nature of work requires continuous performance where stoppage may cause damages. Hotel businesses, entertainment establishments, transportation, food and beverage services, medical establishments, clubs and associations may require their employees to work on a holiday. The employer must make an agreement with the employee to take another day off to substitute for the traditional holidays. Otherwise, the employer must pay Holidays Pay to the employee.
Employees in Thailand shall have 13 paid traditional holidays per year.
An employee working for an uninterrupted period of 1 year shall have annual leave of not less than 6 working days in 1 year. Both parties may agree in advance to accumulate any unused annual leaves in a year to carry over to the following years.
An employee can avail sick leave as long as he or she is actually sick. The employee shall receive the basic pay during the sick leave not exceeding 30 working days per 1 calendar year. Employees must produce a certificate from a first-class physician or an official medical establishment for sick leaves of 3 days or more.
An employee shall have a weekly holiday of at least 1 day per week, with the interval of not more than 6 days. The employer and employee in a hotel business, transportation, work in a forest, work in a place lacking basic facilities, or any other work as prescribed in the Ministerial Regulation may agree in advance to accumulate and postpone weekly holidays to avail any time. However, the employee must avail the accumulated holidays within a period of 4 consecutive weeks.
Thailand Labor and Employment Law prohibits an employer to require a pregnant employee to perform any of the following work:
Employers must not require their pregnant employees to work between 10.00pm and 6.00am, to work overtime or on holidays. If the pregnant employee works in an executive position, academic, or finance, the employer may require her to work overtime. This is possible as long as there is no effect on the health of the employee. The overtime work must have a prior consent on each occasion.
A pregnant employee shall have a maternity leave of not more than 90 days for each pregnancy. She can receive wages equal to the working day wage throughout the maternity leave, not exceeding 45 days per year.
