South Africa's congested public holiday period, which kicked off with the Easter weekend and includes the possibility of a five-day weekend later this month, will cost the economy at least R1,5-billion in lost production each vacation day.
Sello Mosai, the head of research and advocacy at the National Productivity Institute, said: "If one calculates the number of working days, including weekends, ordinary leave and public holidays, one can calculate how many days were actually used to produce a year's production and then what the production per day is. This will then give an indication of the cost of a public holiday. The cost using 2004 figures possibly lies between R1,5-billion and R2,3-billion a day."
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The four-day Easter weekend will be followed by a five-day break when South Africans celebrate Freedom Day, which falls on April 27, a Thursday, meaning employees could net a five-day break by taking a day's leave on April 28. The long weekend culminates in Workers' Day on May 1.
Mosai said some believed that weekends and public holidays revitalised people, enabling them to be more productive. He added that indirect costs of public holidays included goods and services not being produced on such days, for instance everyday consumables like food, beverages, clothing, chemicals and many more, the consumption of which might be higher on public holidays than on normal working days.
'An additional shopping day' "The production of more durable items like furniture, motor vehicles, machinery and buildings is more difficult to catch up on, because of the complexity of production and the lags and leads in the production. A public holiday might therefore have more effect on such industries," he said.
The manufacturing sector, according to Mosai, is, however, more dependent on its workforce and public holidays have a more pronounced influence on this sector.
Negative effect on the economy
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