Will Sept. 28 be declared a public holiday to extend the Chuseok break?

With the Chuseok holiday approaching, attention is growing over whether the government will designate Sept. 28 as a temporary public holiday.

This year's Chuseok break spans only four days including the weekend, and some large companies have already announced they will close on Sept. 28 — the day immediately after the holiday — fueling workers' hopes that the government will follow suit with an official designation.

The Chuseok holiday this year runs for three days, from Sept. 24 through Sept. 26. Adding Sunday the 27th brings the total to four days. The contrast with last year is stark: in 2025, workers who used a single day of annual leave on a Friday could string together up to 10 consecutive days off by combining National Foundation Day, Hangul Day, weekends and substitute holidays.

Some have argued that because the last day of the Chuseok holiday falls on a Saturday, Monday the 28th should automatically become a substitute holiday.

Under the current government regulation on public holidays, however, a substitute holiday is triggered only when a Chuseok holiday falls on a Sunday or another public holiday. Because no such overlap occurs this year, Sept. 28 does not qualify for an automatic substitute holiday under existing law.

The government can nonetheless designate Sept. 28 as a temporary public holiday through a Cabinet resolution. Over the past 11 years, it has done so seven times, citing reasons such as stimulating domestic consumption and giving citizens additional rest.

There is also precedent for announcing such a designation with little notice. The Aug. 14, 2015, temporary holiday was announced just 10 days before it took effect, and the May 6, 2016, holiday was announced only eight days in advance.

While boosting domestic consumption is the primary rationale for temporary holidays, opinions on their actual effect are divided. Longer holidays tend to drive up demand for overseas travel, which weighs on the services trade balance. Conversely, a shorter holiday can increase demand for domestic day trips, potentially benefiting local economies.

A case in point: when the government designated an extra day off during last year's Lunar New Year holiday, creating a six-day break, a record 2,972,916 people departed for overseas travel that month — the highest monthly outbound figure ever recorded at the time.

Concerns have also been raised about productivity losses from production halts, particularly in manufacturing, as well as confusion on the front lines of financial and public-sector services and gaps in childcare coverage.

On workplace online communities, many workers have expressed hope for the extra holiday — "the whole break disappears just getting there and back," one post read, while another noted it would allow long-distance travel without burning annual leave. But opposition voices are also prominent: "My mortgage payment clears on Monday — will the banks even be open?" wrote one user, while another argued that "extending holidays when the economy is struggling is pointless."

As of now, the government has not officially reviewed designating Sept. 28 as a temporary public holiday. Unless a separate announcement is made, workers and students will be expected to report to their offices and schools as normal that day. Looking further ahead, early October brings two more holiday clusters: a three-day break from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5 combining National Foundation Day and a substitute holiday, followed by a three-day stretch from Oct. 9 to Oct. 11 linking Hangul Day with the weekend.