Lawyer tells how the two-day work week will affect wages

January is traditionally the shortest working month of the year, as it has many non-working holidays. In 2025, the first working week will be two days (January 9 and 10), after which the weekend will come again. Alexander Yuzhalin, head of legal practice at SuperJob, told Izvestia on January 2 whether wages will change in January because of this.

Given that January 1 is Wednesday, those working on a five-day work week have the weekend starting on Sunday, December 29, and will last until January 8 inclusive. In total - 11 days off.

At the same time, the long weekend should not affect the wages of employees who have a fixed salary. In accordance with Article 112 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the presence of non-working holidays in the month does not affect the salary. Accordingly, such employees will not lose money, the expert explained.

"If an employee is not set a salary, but, for example, an hourly wage rate or piece rate, there may be changes in wages. Everything will depend on how many hours in total per month the employee will work or what amount of work will be done. But such employees should be paid additional remuneration by the employer if they will not work from January 1 to January 8," - said the lawyer.

According to him, the amount of such remuneration should be determined by a local normative act of the organization. If the employee will be involved in work on non-working holidays, such work should be paid at double the rate.

"Most likely, the amount of wages for the first half of January ("advance" for January) will seem unfamiliar to all "salary earners". The fact is that the employer pays wages to employees twice a month: an "advance" for the first half of the month and the final payment at the end of the month. In this case, the salary is paid in proportion to the time worked. Consequently, for January, the "advance" will include only a few working days (since the first half of January is full of holidays and weekends), so the amount of the advance will be small", - said Yuzhalin.

At the same time, he emphasized that the salary for the second part of the month will be significantly higher than usual, and as a result, the total salary for January will remain the same.

Earlier, December 26, it was reported that in the New Year holidays 40% of Russians surveyed will work. This is stated in the results of a study of services Work.ru, "Podrabotka" and analysts of the media holding Rambler & Co. In this case, 26% plan to work at the main place, 8% will combine the main employment with additional employment, another 6% - only part-time. Respondents plan to earn money during the holidays as drivers (13%), which reflects the demand for transportation services in the pre-New Year period. Security guards (8%) and couriers (6%), as well as construction and laborers (5%) remain in demand.