1. The initial leave starts as 15 days.

Once an employee worked for 80% of total working days of the first year, he is entitled to use 15 days’ annual leave during the next one year. If an employee works less than 80% of the total working days, basically he gets no annual leave at all for the next year.

However, that would be too harsh for an employee who started his first year but failed to work 80% of total working days. So, an employee in his first year is entitled to 1 day of annual leave for 1 full month he already worked. Such leave based on 1 month work is valid for 1 year.  As a result, even if an employee worked only 7 months in the first year, he can still use 7 days’ leave in the first year or the next year.

2. The days of leave increases every two other year from 4th year up to the ceiling of 25 days.

An example can make this easier to understand.

1st year: working for 80% of total working days

2nd year: entitled to 15 days’ annual leave

3rd year: entitled to 15 days’ annual leave

4th year: 16 days’ annual leave

5th year: 16 days’ annual leave

6th year: 17 days’ annual leave

…

22nd year: 25 days’ annual leave

3. Unused days of leave do not roll over to the next year on a certain condition.

If an employee does not use up annual leave for one year, remaining days of annual leave cannot be used in the next year. However, for this, an employer should give a written notice to the employee specifying number of remaining days of annual leave and urging him to use up the leave. The notice should be given three months before the annual leave expires. As annual leave can be used within 1 year and supposing that 1 year coincides with a calendar year, such notice would have to be given until the end of September or until October 10th at the latest.

4. An employee in his first year can use 1 day of annual leave for 1 worked month.

Even if an employee has not completed his first year, he can use annual leave. In that case, he can use 1 day of leave if he had worked one full month. However, such annual leave used in advance should be taken out from 15 days of annual leave that the employee will be entitled to after one year.
For example, if an employee used 5 months of annual leave in his first year, the next year’s annual leave for him will be 10 days instead of 15 days.

5. Last but not least, annual leave is paid leave.

Even if your employees take a leave, you should pay ordinary or average wages for the days of leave. As monthly payment of wages is a usual practice in Korea, this just means you pay them full month’s wages, even if they use annual leave during a certain month.