John Jonas (Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast, Ep.246) explains how the 2023 Philippine holiday calendar produces many long weekends that affect outsourcing operations. He warns that many holidays fall on Mondays or Fridays in 2023 (unlike 2022), creating approximately nine long weekends, and he lists the regular and special holidays likely to cause extended time off. He also points listeners to a shared Google Calendar of Philippine holidays and gives practical advice about marking the calendar and planning work around upcoming holidays.
Questions this episode answers
About nine long weekends.
April 6–10 (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Day of Valor), May 1 (Labor Day), June 12 (Independence Day), August 28 (National Heroes Day), November 27 (Bonifacio Day), December 25 (Christmas Day).
August 21 (Ninoy Aquino Jr. Day), November 1–2 (All Saints and All Souls Days, with possible leave on Oct 31 and Nov 3), December 8 (Feast of the Immaculate Conception — Friday).
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 246, long weekends on the 2023 Philippines holiday calendar. So in 2022, last year, a lot of holidays in the Philippines fell on the weekend. They fell on Saturday or Sunday. And the Philippine government decided we're not making those up. We already have enough holidays. If a holiday like Christmas falls on Sunday, well then Christmas is on Sunday. It's not a day off on Monday. But in 2023, a lot of those holidays now fall on Monday or Friday. So if your OFS doesn't work on weekends, which very few of ours do, then you can expect about nine long weekends this year, if you count regular and special holidays. So if this is going to affect you, make sure you talk to your OFS about it and plan for it. So let me talk about some of these. So the regular holidays that are going to fall on Friday or Monday and create a long weekend are April 6th to 10th, which is Thursday, Friday and Monday, Maugie Thursday, Good Friday, and Day of Valor. So those are pretty important. May 1, which is a Monday. Labor Day, pretty important. June 12, which is a Monday, Philippine Independence Day. Pretty important. August 28, Monday, National Heroes Day, November 27, Monday, Bonifacio Day, December 25, Monday, Christmas Day. So each of these is going to create a long weekend. Then those are the regular like required holidays. We have the special holidays. So August 21, Monday, Ninoy Aquino Jr. Day. I don't actually know if I'm saying that correctly. November 1st and 2nd, which is Wednesday and Thursday, All Saints and All Souls Days. Except that your OFS may ask for leave on October 31, which is Tuesday for travel to the province and November 3, Friday to complete their long weekend. Which means that Halloween, my least favorite weekday of the year, is now a week long holiday. Because All Saints and All Souls days are November 1st and 2nd. Halloween is the day before. So that's Tuesday. You have Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then chances are, you know, why not just travel Friday before or the Saturday before and take Saturday and Sunday and all week and Saturday, Sunday the next week. So they're, they may want Monday and Friday off also. So there's a long one, super unplanned. Just, you know, be aware of it. And then December 8, which is a Friday feast of the Immaculate Conception. So these special holidays are not required, but they're recommended. So if you want to stay updated on the holidays, you can check out our Google calendar where we we update all the Philippines holidays. You can subscribe to it. I'll put a link in the description below to the Google Calendar. You can subscribe to it. Then these holidays will show up on your personal calendar. Now on mine, I subscribe to it and I set the color of that calendar to a light yellow so that it's there, but it's not in my face. And I know, Okay, I now know why I didn't hear from people today. It was a holiday. I know that. Or I'll know. Okay, next Monday's a holiday. So today's Thursday. We really need to get this thing done. Hey guys, can you please try and get this done today? Because I know you're off Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then, you know, so having it on my calendar is really, really nice. We provide that for for free link in the description.
