Since 2008, the beloved statutory holiday on the eve of the Lunar New Year has always been a day of travel for sons and daughters to make the trip back to their hometowns before the celebrations on New Year's Day.
With the new changes announced in 2013, most companies are required to move the New Year's Eve 2014 holiday three days later to Lunar Day 3. Those who have signed up to work "overtime" for New Year's Eve had their triple pay stripped to that of just a normal work day.
According to Beijing Morning News, the normally waived highway toll rates for statutory holidays have been re-implemented for New Year's Eve, since it no longer falls into the four major holidays: Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Labor Day, and National Day.
With the unexpected change, many who have already purchased round-trip tickets would have to pay extra to continue with their holiday plans.
Mr. Mu, whose position at a state-owned enterprise could only allot him 5 days of annual leave, expressed his sentiments when he had to "use his own money" to make his vacation trip to Hong Kong: "Many of my friends are facing the same situation. I was afraid that my colleagues will also ask for the day off before the New Year." He says, this is the first time he had ever rushed anybody to take his money.
In 2008, Labor Day was reduced to a single day, with the remaining two days moved to celebrate Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival.
At this statutory holiday change, Lunar New Year's Eve had also been implemented as a national day off. Before 2008, however, up to 77.9% of workers had also been able to spend time with their families and were not required to show up for work.
At the news of this national change, the CEOs of 360 and LETV announced on Weibo that they will approve any requests to miss work on New Year's Eve. Many traditional business owners, however, are generally silent and have not given any of their employees any signs to delay the change until 2015.