Is April 19th An Official Day Off For Employees?

[orchis]

Is April 19 an official day off for employees such as office staff?

[robitusson]

Yup.

[bino]

Yup.

My Gf only gets 1/2 day off............

[English Noodles]

Why is April 19th a day off?

[robitusson]

Another election.

[Buckwheat]

Seems as if govt. employees aren't the only ones getting a day off.

According to the Banglamung Police Department, all bars are closed from 1800 on the 18th of April until midnight on the 19th of April in compliance with election law. Happy Songkran.

[English Noodles]

Jeez i guues that means there is no drink served on the 18th then

[markuk]

we still have monday off, no change for the 19th work as usual as i speak, though wouldnt suprise me if that changes on Tuesday - crafty buggers....

[tom yum goong]

we've got the 19th off, Senate elections

[Axel]

The government usually decides off-days for their employees. Most companies follow suite.

They did announce that the planned April 17 as last Songkran-day will be replaced by April 19 due to the senatorial elections.

(You might find some Thai calendars showing 17th as holiday)

And yes, as usual for elections no alcolhol to be served from 18:00 hours to preceeding night til midnight on election day.

[orchis]

Thank you all.

[jdinasia]

The fast answer ... MAYBE

[Scott]

It's my undestanding that elections aren't being held everywhere--only in places where candidates didn't surpass the 20% threshold. So, if you live in an area where there isn't an election, then it might not be a day off.

[Crossy]

It's my undestanding that elections aren't being held everywhere--only in places where candidates didn't surpass the 20% threshold. So, if you live in an area where there isn't an election, then it might not be a day off.

Nah, it's the SENATE election, all areas. The by-elections for the unfilled seats is later in the month 23rd maybe.

[jdinasia]

yeppers this is Senate elections ... all places .... most people are NOT getting the day off though many are

[grahamb]

In my company, we got the information about 19-Apr being a day off at the same time as being told that 12-Jun and 13-Jun are a day off. The email said that the government had just declared all 3 of them as public holidays. Strangely, 17-Apr wasn't listed as a day off before that so it looks like an extra day for us

[Jai Dee]

This is what our HR department issued:

This is to confirm that April 19th, 2006 is a normal working day, not public holiday. The Cabinet approved this day to be public holiday for government sectors in substitution of April 17th, 2006 which announced earlier. This change will not affect us.

[OldAsiaHand]

It's not the election that makes the 19th a holiday (or not). There was a short piece in the Post last week saying that the 19th had now been declared by the cabinet as the official substitution holiday for the third day of Songkron, which otherwise would have been on the 17th. If this makes any sense at all to you, please report to government house and you will be named prime minister.

Whether and to what extent the last-minute declaration of a holiday will be observed by anyone is anyone's guess. Whoever above said the right answer was 'maybe' is spot on.

[Losangels]

To all the boozers out there, get your booze before 6 PM tomorrow evening.

[moonoi]

Well it seems my HR department / company knew a long time ago about this...I recieved this on 23rd December 2005:

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URGENT - 3 January is no longer a public holiday - April 19 is instead

Dear all

The Bank of Thailand have recently announced that the public holiday that was originally planned for 3 January has now been replaced by a holiday on 19 April for the Senate Election Day.

As our company supports the financial markets, we therefore need follow this arrangement so the 3 January will no longer be a public holiday and this will be replaced by a holiday on 19 April.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Kind regards

HR Team

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How strange that some organisations are giving differant reasons for April 19th

EDIT: You'll also find back in January in the Pinned thread about ThaiVisa 2006 downloadable calendar (edit again it used to be pinned but it seems not anymore) I asked if this day should be changed, but it seemed that most people still got the 3rd off.......

Edited April 17, 2006 by moonoi

[moonoi]

In my company, we got the information about 19-Apr being a day off at the same time as being told that 12-Jun and 13-Jun are a day off. The email said that the government had just declared all 3 of them as public holidays. Strangely, 17-Apr wasn't listed as a day off before that so it looks like an extra day for us

With regards to the 17th April, my company is the same was never designated as a holiday for this year. My gf tells me that the only people that have today off are those that work in part-gov/private owned enterprises such as TOT.........still nothings ever clear here so could be wrong

Anyway her dad has the day off while she and her mum has to go to work......