# How do public holidays work outside the US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 2, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847 "2019-02-02T18:14:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/21 "2019-02-03T23:52:01Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Agree generally with **md2000** ’s summary for Canada, except Saturday and Sunday aren’t public holidays, so no holiday pay for working those days. > > Instead, there’s a statutory limit on hours pet week: 48 in Ontario. If the employee agrees in writing to work longer hours, then there’s overtime. Last Labour Day, I worked, and got triple time. 🙂 (Stat(utory) holiday + overtime…) > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > And, public holidays are different from vacation time. Each employee is entitled to a certain number of vacation days per year, in addition to the public holidays. The minimum is 2 weeks of vacation, going up to three after x number of years in the job (5 or 10, I think). ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/22 "2019-02-04T00:10:51Z")
I’m not sure what the law requires in New Zealand. Where I am working we can be rostered to work any day of the year so we get an additional 11 leave days (equal to the number of public holidays). We also get a day in lieu and paid time and a half if we actually work a public holiday. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/23 "2019-02-04T00:57:56Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > The minimum is 2 weeks of vacation, going up to three after x number of years in the job (5 or 10, I think). Depends where you are in Canada. In the Workers’ Paradise of Saskatchewan, you start with three weeks paid leave and get four after a certain number of years with the employer. And it’s defined as calendar weeks, not work weeks, to ensure weekends are part of the vacation (although only paid for five days per week). ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/24 "2019-02-04T03:12:34Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > I’m not sure what the law requires in New Zealand. Where I am working we can be rostered to work any day of the year so we get an additional 11 leave days (equal to the number of public holidays). We also get a day in lieu and paid time and a half if we actually work a public holiday. Pretty similar - time and a half and a day in lieu if you work a public holiday. There are still some employers who try to shift the rosters of casual/part-time employees to avoid the “regularly rostered” classification so they don’t have to pay extra to staff working public holidays, but the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment takes a fairly dim view of that sort of thing. Some restaurants and cafes used to add a surcharge (10-15%) for public holiday service, but enough places have stopped doing it that those that do will not get any business if they try. All of our specifically dated Public Holidays are now _mondayised_ for non-weekend workers (Christmas day, Boxing day, New Years Day, 2nd Jan, Waitangi Day, ANZAC day and a regional Anniversary day) . The others are fixed on a Monday or Friday anyhow (Good Friday, Easter Monday, Queens Birthday and Labour Day). ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/25 "2019-02-04T05:23:04Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > There is a comprehensive table on Wikipedia. > > The US seems to be exceptionally kind to employers.:dubious: > > [List of minimum annual leave by country - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country) In the entry for Japan, it says that employers aren’t required to pay employees on public holidays, but all the employers I worked for did. There are about 23 to 25 days, and up to 28 if the summer Obon vacation is counted. I don’t know what compensation there is for people who have to work on those days. Annual leave starts at a mandatory 10 days, and increases one day yearly until 20 days. When I set up the Japan branch office for a US company, HQ was surprised at how much timeoff was mandated. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/26 "2019-02-04T09:09:00Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > There’s not much the average Aussie likes so much as a long weekend. > > For example we have our national holiday Australia Day, commemorating the First Fleet under Captain Arthur Phillip which arrived on 24th January in Botany Bay. But because they were unable to find fresh water embarked again and sailed a few miles north to Port Jackson (or Sydney Cove) landing on 26 January 1788. So we celebrate the 26th, sort of. The big problem with Australia Day is not because the indigenous population consider it Invasion Day but because sometimes it falls on a weekend. Australian patriotism has clearly defined limits. We can’t miss out on the holiday so we get around this by proclaiming the following Monday as the Australia Day Holiday. > . I wrote to my local Federal Rep, and told him that I was Howard Liberal, but that Howard had made a mistake trying to turn Australia Day from a long weekend into a fixed-date holiday emphasizing it’s historic political importance: my idea of an Australian Holiday was a holiday on a hot summer day, late in January, and I didn’t care what they called it. He wrote back a friendly letter (as is his job to do) saying that he thought most Australians would agree with me. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/27 "2019-02-04T11:51:03Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > When I set up the Japan branch office for a US company, HQ was surprised at how much timeoff was mandated. Similar in Canada, and also with respect to severance entitlements. I’ve heard from Canadian lawyers who advise on employment matters that it’s not uncommon for a US business to buy a Canadian business with a goal of re-org and integration into their US enterprise, only to discover after the fact that their goal of re-org (i.e. firing) had been based on US labour law assumptions, and that it would be too costly to carry out their plan. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/28 "2019-02-04T12:06:58Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > … Howard had made a mistake trying to turn Australia Day from a long weekend into a fixed-date holiday emphasizing it’s historic political importance:… I haven’t been overly convinced by the Invasion Day arguments but I think you have opened my eyes to possibilities. Call the 26th Australia Day whenever it falls but have Invasion Day as the holiday Monday. Win-Win-Win. The white shirt & ties brigade can have their flag raising day, the indigenous and sympathisers get recognition for past injustices and the great unwashed can ingnore both with impunity but get a long weekend. Brilliant. If we can celebrate losing on ANZAC Day, we sure can celebrate the Invasion Day long weekend. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/29 "2019-02-04T14:38:12Z")
It should be noted though that in the US, federal holidays are not compulsory, but they are generally followed. There are also days that aren’t Federal Holidays that enjoy widespread ‘not working.’ Basically, it’s the Wild West, but that doesn’t mean that it’s simply oppression. Part of this is the fact that our separation of church and state are so absolutely ridiculous. What happens is that there are religious holidays that are generally observed within communities, but the federal government can’t acknowledge them since apparently saying that something is a holiday is the same thing as establishing a religion. At the same time, those communities shut down on those days (Easter is a big one.) So the government basically just says, “Everyone is responsible for their own holidays and how they treat them.” You also have Federal holidays that were created to appease some group, but are offensive to others (Columbus Day is the big one now, but Martin Luther King Day has also had a fraught history) so privates don’t want to offend their workers. What you end up with is a hodge-podge of different ways that holidays are treated. Most companies are not particularly oppressive about it. Time and a half on big holidays is pretty much the norm even at relatively low level jobs. It’s really only the absolute lowest jobs that don’t give time and a half. For me, I get 13 paid holidays a year on odd years and 15 on even years. They are New Year’s Day MLK Day ‘Spring Holiday’ (Good Friday, but we can’t say that. Shhhh…) Memorial Day Independence Day (Fourth of July… who actually calls it ‘Independence Day’?) Labor Day ‘Day Before Thanksgiving’ Thanksgiving Lincoln’s Birthday (which we ‘celebrate’ on the Friday after Thanksgiving so it’s a giant chunk off) Winter Holiday (Christmas Eve) Winter Holiday II (Christmas, again, we must be quiet about its real purpose.) Winter Holiday III (Boxing Day, but American’s wouldn’t call it that, we would just say the Day after Christmas.) New Year’s Eve On even years, we also get Primary Election Day and Election Day (although they call them something else. Election Day is called Susan B. Anthony Day, but I forget what they call the Primary Election Day.) It’s also customary at my place of employment to give a ‘Floating Holiday’ that you can use when you want that serves as a ‘Christmas Bonus’ or a ‘minority religious day.’ I will say that I would posit that that particular holiday schedule is pretty generous and I wouldn’t say it’s typical. I would say the typical holiday schedule includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and frequently July 4th. Memorial Day and Labor Day are probably the next most common and MLK Day after that. If you have a professional job, they’ll add in the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Christmas/Thanksgiving/New Year’s dates. Good Friday is rare except in fairly religious areas. Out of all of these, Christmas is really the only one that is almost completely universally observed. Only absolute buggers of businesses or really true essentials don’t give their employees Christmas off. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/30 "2019-02-04T15:27:17Z")
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I NEVER got MLK Day off until I started working in the public sector. Even in college, MLK Day was often the first day of classes for the spring semester. Same for President’s Day- never got that off either. Nor the day before Thanksgiving, or Boxing day either. We did however typically get the day after Thanksgiving off at most jobs, with one glaring exception- my last employer got bought by some particularly stingy bastards out of Mechanicsburg, PA, and they revoked the day-after-Thanksgiving holiday. Fuckers. Back 15-20 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for companies to shut down at lunch before major religious holidays- Good Friday, Xmas Eve, etc… but they quit doing that about 10-15 years ago everywhere I’ve worked. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/31 "2019-02-04T15:34:49Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Time and a half on big holidays is pretty much the norm even at relatively low level jobs. It’s really only the absolute lowest jobs that don’t give time and a half. Um, this is not true for anyone categorized as salaried exempt, which is nearly all professional and management level employees. Salaried exempt people are exempt from overtime pay (and more, but I won’t get into the legalities), so we’re “paid for our responsibilities and not our time”. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/32 "2019-02-04T15:42:26Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Independence Day (Fourth of July… who actually calls it ‘Independence Day’?) And I think that’s the primary reason it has not been moved to Monday like almost every other holiday. How can you celebrate the Fourth of July on the fifth or even worse June 30th? Though I assume if they did make it a Monday holiday it would be first Monday in July so it never did fall in June. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/33 "2019-02-04T16:15:04Z")
The one time I spent a few days in Munich, I had hoped to visit the BMW factory for a tour - but it was the Ascension (?) so the factory was closed for the holiday. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2019, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/34 "2019-02-05T14:56:18Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Um, this is not true for anyone categorized as salaried exempt, which is nearly all professional and management level employees. Salaried exempt people are exempt from overtime pay (and more, but I won’t get into the legalities), so we’re “paid for our responsibilities and not our time”. In theory this means that we should be a lot more free to come and go as we please, as long as we take care of our responsibilities. But in a 20+ year career, I’ve only worked in maybe two places out of six total where that’s been literally true. Most places want to lock you down to specific work hours that you have to be there as a salaried person, and bug you about productivity/being busy, yet reserve the right to work you like a rented mule without extra compensation when after hours or crunch time work needs to be done. That’s something that probably should be regulated, IMO. I think people wouldn’t mind the overtime and night/weekend/holiday stuff if they could also get their day’s stuff done by 2:30 and bail some days. Or however that works out for them. But instead, we get the worst of both worlds- blue-collar style restrictions on work hours, attendance, etc… and white-collar overtime, etc… I mean, if a company’s making you take sick time or vacation time for a 2 hour doctor’s appointment, they should also be compensating you for being bugged during your lunch hour etc… ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/35 "2019-02-06T22:18:24Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > If we can celebrate losing on ANZAC Day, we sure can celebrate the Invasion Day long weekend. You fill my heart with fear :). Next thing will be having D day celebrations. ABC covering smoking ceremonies, Ch9 doing re-enactments of the invasion… ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/36 "2019-02-07T12:38:25Z")
In China, we had this concept of bridge days and makeup days. Say that a holiday was on a Thursday. We’d get Thursday off as a holiday, but also get Friday off in order to bridge to the weekend. Except, we then had to work on Sunday in order to make up for getting the Friday off! I always made it a point to tell my guys to take a work-at-home day on days like that. Because I never went to work on such days, I only assume they followed my instructions and stayed home. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/37 "2019-02-07T14:27:23Z")
It is easy to get the impression that the US has an uncompromising hire/fire work culture with not much time off for employees and a dependency on the company for healthcare insurance. But is it not the case that employees often have the benefit of tax deductible junkets known as conventions? Only a measly week or so of vacation, but a couple of weeks convention/vacation on the company in Las Vegas…is that how the system redresses the balance between employer and employee? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/38 "2019-02-07T14:46:44Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Part of this is the fact that our separation of church and state are so absolutely ridiculous. What happens is that there are religious holidays that are generally observed within communities, but the federal government can’t acknowledge them since apparently saying that something is a holiday is the same thing as establishing a religion. At the same time, those communities shut down on those days (Easter is a big one.) So the government basically just says, “Everyone is responsible for their own holidays and how they treat them.” I’ve worked at several places that had “floating holidays”- i.e. a day or two off annually that wasn’t considered part of vacation time (i.e. you didn’t have to accrue it), but that you could take when you chose, instead of on a specific day. I always interpreted this to be their way to accommodate religious holidays- Christians could take Good Friday/Easter Monday/Nov 1st or whatever, and Jews could take Rosh Hashanah and/or Yom Kippur, Muslims could take Eid, Indians Gandhi Jayanti, and so on… And no… most people don’t get to go to conventions; I think in a 20 year IT career I’ve been to one convention, and it was a one-day affair that happened to be occurring in the city where I worked. So I got a day off work, but no travel, etc… ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/39 "2019-02-07T15:27:14Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > But is it not the case that employees often have the benefit of tax deductible junkets known as conventions? I’m sure that the vast majority of American employees don’t get sent to conventions. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847/40 "2019-02-07T18:06:52Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > I’m sure that the vast majority of American employees don’t get sent to conventions. Yeah, conventions are generally for management and occasionally professionals. Nobody is sending the Walmart cashier to a convention. Training is more common, but it’s not a vacation. You’re sitting in a room for 9 hours listening to a lecturer, not living the good life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-public-holidays-work-outside-the-us/828847.md?page=3)