Expert suggests letting individuals decide on holiday shifts

In China, many public holidays are extended by swapping weekends with weekdays, leaving many weighing a difficult trade-off: is concentrated time off worth the exhaustion of long workweeks? In a recent exclusive interview with China Perspective, Wang Wei, senior researcher and former director of the Institute of Market Economy at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that the current holiday shift system was a product of an earlier stage of development, and that the "right to choose should be handed over to consumers in the future".

Pointing to policymakers' rising attention to holiday arrangements, an unnamed official with the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs has told Xinhua News Agency that authorities will remove unreasonable restrictive measures to unleash consumption potential and ensure that staggered paid leave for employees is more effectively implemented.