Christmas & CNY money/lai si

W

Wee Kean

Registered User
We have asked our helper to work for us on Christmas Day for half a day, of which she agreed. However, she wants to be paid intead of getting another day as replacement.

My question is, how much should we pay her? We have bought her a Christmas present.

How much Lai Si/Red packet/money should we give her for Chinese New Year? We won't be here for CNY so she doesn't need to work for a week.

Do we have to give her the end of the year bonus as well?

Thank you very much!
 
i think that it is illegal to pay her instead of giving her another day off.

that said, if this is what she'd prefer, then....

as for how much. i would figure $50/hour as a start and then personally, i'd probably double it. i'm guessing that she's from PH and probably a christian, so working on christmas would be a big deal for her.

for us, we give her a few presents for under the tree, some small things for in a stocking and then some cash. (last year we gave her a dvd player $255 + $500 cash). this year we're just going to give her $1000 cash. for CNY we gave her $500 and then $500 for her birthday. (her birthday & cny are the same time next year...)

she seems very happy with this.
 
Wee Kean,

Best to ask her how much she's expecting and see if you can come to an agreement. There are quite a few helpers in our complex who prefer to work on Sundays and have negotiated a day rate with their employers.

We give our helper cash for Xmas/CNY/her Birthday/D's birthday/Diwali. Around $300-500 at each.

Haven't given an end-of year bonus either
 
we are as generous as we can afford to be. she takes terrific care of my most prized things...my child (soon to be children) and my family. i think that for all of the hard work that she does (even though there are helpers out there who do a lot more) she deserves whatever we can afford. (hubby and i didn't exchange gifts this year, we decided to put the $ towards a short holiday after the baby comes).

my helper also gave my son a new winter coat (from bossini) for christmas, which was very generous of her too.

after she opened her card and saw the $, she came over to me with tears in her eyes and gave me a huge hug and said, "thank you, i know that it's difficult for you and still you are so generous"....

long and short of it is, she works hard and takes good care of us. she's been great since i've had such a hard pregnancy and she' really tried hard. she deserves it!
 
yes it is illegal to pay her instead of designating an alternate day off. just read that in the handbook from immigration or labour dept (whichever one)

i also read that there are vaction days on top of annual leave??? what's that about?


as well when they have annual leave, rest days (sundays) and stat holidays that are within the time they are away are counted in the days of annual leave? ie if they'r away from the 24-30th dec (one week) then the sunday and xmas day are still counted as 2 days, according to the handout. can anyone clarify if i have misunderstood this?
 
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