What would happen if US workers had as much vacation as Europeans?

[toadspittle]

Man. People START with 30 days? Both my wife and I started with 5 vacation days our first year. Mine went up to 10 the following year and peaked at 15 (somewhere between year 5 and 8 … don’t recall, exactly). My wife’s immediately went to 15 (which is the max at her company), including sick days in year two. I, at least, had unlimited sick days.

[Ximenean]

Who said they start with 30 days?

I think you have to be careful with making comparisons of vacation entitlement between jurisdictions. The statutory minimums tend to include public holidays. Leaving aside public holidays, Britain’s statutory minimum is only 17 or 20 days (it changed recently). And there are generally no additional “personal days” here - it all comes out of your annual allowance. On the other hand, sick leave is entirely separate from vacation. A few sick days a year do not affect you vacation entitlement. In theory, longer periods of genuine sickness are protected too, to an extent.

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@Natty_Bumppo

I really don’t know what I’d do for 45 days a year with no work. I’ll bet I’m not all that unusual in the USA.

You could spend time getting to know your family… care for them… raise your kids… live life, etc…

You know… Family Values.

NOTE: this is not directed at you personally Natty, just an overall suggestion of what Americans could do with more time off. For me it really does all come down to family values. I wonder why the GOP isn’t pushing hard for more vacation time?

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

@constanze

oh, to add to point 1: seniority in a company doesn’t play a role, but biological age plays a role - the older employees get a few days more to recover. Also, handicapped employees get more days.

FUCKIN’ COMMIES!!!

don’t you understand??!?!
BOOTSTRAPS!!!
PULL YOURSELF UP BY YOUR OWN!!!
Invisible Hand knows all— Invisible Hand sees all!!! What are all these children doing PLAYING GAMES??? (and on MY lawn, too!) They could be breaking rocks or sumpin’…

Damn you commies!!!

[yojimbo]

I think the legal minimum for a full time worker here is 21 days. Public hols not included

I get 23 with a extra 3 after 10 years service, I have the option to buy up to 8 more if I want(there’s a benifits package that we can, cash, buy holidays, put to extra pension contribs etc)

Sick days paid up to 90 days in a row, after that you go on goverment support until you return to work. In my case the firm makes up the balance so you don’t loose money, you just go on long term sick.

ETA:

Ireland ’s annual leave entitlements comply with EU regulations.

Annual Leave for full time workers:

* Holiday entitlements are earned from the day you begin work.
* The minimum Irish annual leave entitlement is 4 working weeks paid annual leave per leave year.
* However, annual leave in Ireland is accrued based on time worked by the employee.
* Full-time employees earn one week of paid annual leave for every three months worked.
* Employees who work 1365 hours in any given leave year have earned their full four week holiday entitlement at that point, except if it is a leave year in which the employee changes employment.

Irish employees are also entitled to nine public holidays during the year, in respect of which your employer may choose to give you one of the following four options:

* a paid day off on the day, or
* a paid day off within a month, or
* an extra day of paid annual leave, or
* an extra day’s pay

http://www.jobsearch.ie/employers/hr_holiday_entitlements.htm

[Elendil_s_Heir]

I, too, am baffled by those who say they don’t know what they’d do with more vacation time. I’d fill that time easily, with reading, family travel, volunteer work, Netflix, etc.

[Boyo_Jim]

@amanset

I touched on that earlier but it seemed to pass everyone by.

You’ve all got me on ignore haven’t you, you bastards?

Huh? In think I hear…

Oh never mind, it couldn’t be of any importance.

[amanset]

@Ximenean

Who said they start with 30 days?

I think you have to be careful with making comparisons of vacation entitlement between jurisdictions. The statutory minimums tend to include public holidays. Leaving aside public holidays, Britain’s statutory minimum is only 17 or 20 days (it changed recently). And there are generally no additional “personal days” here - it all comes out of your annual allowance. On the other hand, sick leave is entirely separate from vacation. A few sick days a year do not affect you vacation entitlement. In theory, longer periods of genuine sickness are protected too, to an extent.

I started at this company with 30 days. I’m in Sweden. I used to have a job here where you started with 32.

The legal minimum is 25 days.

This does not include any public holidays or sick days. There are apparently 13 official public holidays and 3 de-facto public holidays, although some of these can fall on weekends.

[Nava]

@Boyo_Jim

How is productivity calculated? I would assume it output per man-hour, which might mean a well-rested and healthier work force would be more productive. OTOH, a calculation of output per worker would almost certainly favor peole working more total hours.

It’s calculated in man-hour or man-year, but often the time worked is wrong: for many people, overtime isn’t taken into account; in office settings with long hours I’ve often seen overtime come after lots of face time.

[Ximenean]

@amanset

I started at this company with 30 days.

And I see that seosamh did in fact say that some UK civil servants start on 30+ days, so my bad. That allowance is very generous by UK standards, though.

[amanset]

In other news, I’ve just found out that today is a 6 hour working day so the locals can go stand in a field and stare at a bonfire whilst it is still light.

It is like November 5th but with all the fun bits removed.

[interface2x]

@yojimbo

I get 23 with a extra 3 after 10 years service, I have the option to buy up to 8 more if I want(there’s a benifits package that we can, cash, buy holidays, put to extra pension contribs etc)

This is something that I can’t understand about American companies - why don’t they do this? Like everyone gets a base of so many days, but at the beginning of the year you have the option to purchase more through a reduction of your salary. Like, if you planning to get married that year, you might want to purchase an additional week beyond your base to cover the extra time you’ll need. That way it can be up to the individual to weigh the importance of money vs. time off and, for the most part, everybody’s happy.

You’d probably get some people that would work themselves silly for the money but if you have a forced base of time off, it ensures that they’d never go beyond a set “danger” zone. Plus you can have a cap where you can purchase so much time, but can not pass a maximum level. It just seems like common sense.

I suppose it’s probably a logistics issue for most companies in that they have to keep track of all these differing schedules, but is that really all that different from what we have now?

In all likelihood, it’s because some companies can give people no time off so they currently have no reason to change.

[Snnipe_70E]

@interface2x

This is something that I can’t understand about American companies - why don’t they do this? Like everyone gets a base of so many days, but at the beginning of the year you have the option to purchase more through a reduction of your salary. Like, if you planning to get married that year, you might want to purchase an additional week beyond your base to cover the extra time you’ll need. That way it can be up to the individual to weigh the importance of money vs. time off and, for the most part, everybody’s happy.

You’d probably get some people that would work themselves silly for the money but if you have a forced base of time off, it ensures that they’d never go beyond a set “danger” zone. Plus you can have a cap where you can purchase so much time, but can not pass a maximum level. It just seems like common sense.

I suppose it’s probably a logistics issue for most companies in that they have to keep track of all these differing schedules, but is that really all that different from what we have now?

In all likelihood, it’s because some companies can give people no time off so they currently have no reason to change.

Every year I take three extra days off with out pay. Decreases my annual pay so it is like buying extra time.

[zweisamkeit]

I get 10 days of vacation time and 5 days of sick time each year; after 3 years you get 15 vacation days. You can carry over your sick days for up to 5 years, but you can only carry over 10 vacation days max per year into the next one.

I cannot fathom the idea that you don’t know what you’d do if you had more days off. I find that so incredibly sad.

Now, I understand guilt over using the vacation days you do have, because I suffer from that. I’m always scared that it’ll show I’m not a “hard worker” or “team player” or something and they’ll think less of me as an employee. But at least, while I feel that, I know that’s sad, too.

[Boyo_Jim]

I’ve never worked anywhere where you couldn’t get unpaid leave. I’m sure there would be some kind of limits, but it is a very common practice.

[Natty_Bumppo]

@I_Love_Me_Vol.I

You could spend time getting to know your family… care for them… raise your kids… live life, etc…

You know… Family Values.

NOTE: this is not directed at you personally Natty, just an overall suggestion of what Americans could do with more time off. For me it really does all come down to family values. I wonder why the GOP isn’t pushing hard for more vacation time?

I don’t take it personally. But, you do make some assumptions that aren’t true. I spend hours with my kids every day. We do homework, eat meals, play outside, and they get a bedtime story every night. There is plenty of time on the weekend to visit family, go to the pool, and take a trip to the zoo. You really don’t need vacation time to have family values.

[Natty_Bumppo]

@zweisamkeit

I get 10 days of vacation time and 5 days of sick time each year; after 3 years you get 15 vacation days. You can carry over your sick days for up to 5 years, but you can only carry over 10 vacation days max per year into the next one.

I cannot fathom the idea that you don’t know what you’d do if you had more days off. I find that so incredibly sad.

Now, I understand guilt over using the vacation days you do have, because I suffer from that. I’m always scared that it’ll show I’m not a “hard worker” or “team player” or something and they’ll think less of me as an employee. But at least, while I feel that, I know that’s sad, too.

I suppose saying I don’t know what I’d do with the free time isn’t really accurate. I’m sure I could come up with something. It would be more accurate to say I don’t ponder what I could be doing with my time if I wasn’t at work. Work is part of life. Sometimes it’s stressful, sometimes if brings a lot of joy. It feels good to have done a solid day’s work. If you work a 40 hour week, and sleep 8 hours a day, that leaves 72 hours a week to do whatever you please. (I even had the time to read that book “grok” comes from.) It’s not like we don’t have free time in America.

[Misnomer]

@interface2x

This is something that I can’t understand about American companies - why don’t they do this? Like everyone gets a base of so many days, but at the beginning of the year you have the option to purchase more through a reduction of your salary.

Lockheed Martin does this: employees can buy up to 40 extra hours of vacation per calendar year, and the cost is spread out across a year of paychecks. The option is presented during the benefits “open season” each fall.

[Ximenean]

Although Fiats are much better than they used to be, they still tend to come towards the bottom in customer satisfaction polls. Here’s the JD Power 2008 UK survey for manufacturers. The range of scores is not that wide, 87% to 77% . But it’s Fiat who come last. I guess Alfa don’t have enough sales to get on the list. In the list of models survey the Fiat Panda does OK, the Punto not so well.

[Ximenean]

Oops, wrong thread, sorry!