Vacation doesn't mean you have to travel, just some time at home not thinking about work / relaxing, do some day trips, is good for you. you go back to work recharged and you'll be more productive.
Yes! When do you live your normal life, if you don't even have a vacation? I used to take 5 weeks in a row in the summer to be with my chidren in our summer cottage swimming, going to swimming etc..and we got holiday payment too "lomaraha" and that helped too!
I have 26 days of vacation , so usually taking 3 weeks in row to made a small trip in my Country just to see other city, and rest at my parents summer house on country side. 11 days I leave for unexpected things that may happen - for example I feel sick, but don't get doctor note to got paid sick day, .
One of the best holidays I had with my family was a bicycle tour from Regensburg to Vienna always following the Danube river. We did a lot of site seeing and slept in cheap Bed and Breakfasts. I think we 4 persons spent not more than 1500 Euro for the complete week. We all still remember this from time to time. The quality of a vacation is not at all linked to the money you spend.
Yep, it's your time off to do what you want with it, with that said, more time off where you are secure in your job and being paid for that time off, a lot more people are likely going to go on vacations. Americans probably don't so much because the conditions are not favourable to allow them to do so, taking time off work and not being paid whiles having a vacation sounds expensive, but not only that, a lot of people like taking trips around the world for 2 weeks, sometimes longer, considering in the US they seem to discourage people from taking too long off work and the guilt that's pushed on Americans for doing so, makes it more likely that most Americans can't afford to go on vacations when they are worrying about their job, bills and all that. Considering that health care is tied to the job through insurance, you really don't want to lose your job in the US, and that pressure pushes lower standards on Americans out of fear of losing their job and health care benefits. It's a bit of a scam why the job and health care are tied together, but it's easy to see why it's done like that, to give more powers to businesses over the workers and the only reason these things don't happen in other modern countries is because the law doesn't allow it, the US as many know, is the odd countries in so many areas in how it treats it's people, and not in a good way.
And thanks to the great Otto von Bismarck who hated the socialists so much that created social security laws to take their political agenda away (highly simplified)
As a German, the american working culture is so annoying. They are all about working TIME, not productivity. Our American factory workers are annoyingly proud of the 60+ hours they work each week while not getting shit done. They are far less productive than our german, french, polish or Italian workers who work "just" 35 hours.
As a British person I love hearing Germans talk to Americans in meetings. Germans just want to discuss what is needed and get back to work, Americans want to have small talk for 15 mins for no reason, use far too many words to explain what they needed then have another bit of small talk at the end. Germans hate this shit, it's not like they don't like small talk they do but not when you are supposed to be working.
its the same with our american factory, the need 3 to 4 days to get their goods from the incoming goods department into the factory. we did the same in 3 to 4 hours
@@jamesdewitt84 To be fair I use my American coworkers to get better at Smalltalk. But you're right, it's a culture clash oftentimes. And to be clear, I like most Americans I've met. I just hate this talking about how hard they are working when they are basically wasting time.
When I lived in Europe I had 25 days of vacation (guaranteed by the government, not negotiable by the employer) plus 16 recognized paid national holidays. That's 41 days off in total (basically 2 months out of a year you don't work and still get paid plus you have full health insurance). Here in California the HR boss told me I have 10 days vacation plus 6 recognized paid holidays, that's 16 days per year total. What a joke! And she was telling me this like it was the best thing! When I asked what about the sick days? She said it's already included in those 10 days of vacation LOL! (In Europe, there's no sick days, because one just stays at home until he gets better, so sick days are unlimited). Then she asked me: where, as an employee, you see yourself in 2 or 5 years? I was thinking to myself: "back in Prague, young lady!" 😝
In many countries you also get "vacation money", which is a half or even a whole month (13th month) salary. So, not only do you get more vacation you also are paid more to take the vacation (or to come back to work from a vacation😀In Finland it used to be called "return to work from the vacation money")
@@jounikemppi here we were use to get 13th salary and these days (large companies negotiated with unions) it is divided as so called 13th and 14th salary (but AFAIK is not mandatory - it is benefit - result of unions negotiations)
No one tell Ryan…… but if you are SICK when on holiday, you can claim your holiday back 😂. Not many of us do, but if you have a long illness, we may do.
Happened to me during this Christmas holiday. Didn’t even have to claim them back. There was an email in my inbox upon my return from an HR person saying “I saw in our system that you reported in sick, so I returned the vacation days for you”. That was for two days. 😍
@@mick-berry5331 No need to claim. Just send the doctors note. I had to do that after Christmas. On the other hand I have 5 more days for summer vacation.
Most people in Germany don't feel bad about going on vacation and leave their coworkers. Why should they? It's their right to go on vacation and everybody goes on vacation. It's totally normal.
@@micade2518 exactly. If an employee going on vacation is a problem for a company, the company didn't do its homework. It could even be called a fire drill - "what happens if employee X is suddenly gone?". Unlike something actually catastrophic, the employee comes back and they get a chance to correct the failings/failures.
That’s how the system works and why it works so well: in most companies, there are a set number of days when everyone is on vacation. In my company, it’s between Christmas and New Year. Everyone clocks out on December 24th and no one returns until January 2nd. This is pretty normal for Europe, which automatically means our customers don’t work then either. A very small skeleton staff is on call, basically getting paid an astronomical amount of money to pan the phones, monitor the general inbox of emails and… scroll on their own mobile. This is just in case of emergencies. The rest of the year everyone pretty much requests and gets their vacation time whenever they want. In very rare cases, you need to adjust a little bit. For example: this year I wanted to take January 2nd off, but as all other German-speaking colleagues had already gotten their vacation for that day approved I didn’t get that day. I didn’t mind, knowing it was going to be an extremely slow day… and I got to take the rest of that week off. It amounted to being present fir py colleagues and handling anything of theirs should it come up that day. Similarly, when one of us goes on vacation, there is always a hand-over to a colleague. Your back- up takes over for you when you’re gone whether it’s on vacation or for medical reasons. If that backup isn’t available, there is a 2nd backup and failing that, there is the manager. General cases and duties are handled by the team as a whole. As everyone works according to that system, no one minds. For example, if I see several general tasks on the list that normally would get handled by my colleagues for say France, the Nordics, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Italy or the UK, but those colleagues are absent, I will check with their assigned back-up how they’re coping and will take some over. I know they’ll do the same for me as well. We recently checked ut of curiosity and in the long run everyone ends up handling roughly the same amount of work. If someone would consistently avoid pulling their weight, they’d ostracise themselves very, very fast. HR has also been smart enough to make sure the reports take sick days into account in such a way that these don’t reflect negatively in our stats. There’s also a strict ‘no poaching’ rule: you NEVER take work away from a colleague without permission from that colleague (or their backup) if he or she is available. They are free to pass it on but if you want to take on something that isn’t yours, you ask. It’s a respect thing. Everyone is expected to take up all of their vacation days within the year. All of it. If due to circumstances you can’t there is a maximum of 2 days transferable to the first week of January. No more. And everyone sticks to that. From high management to the cleaning lady.
I 've just retired but just before retirement I had 30 paid vacation day plus 5 so called senior days and paid holidays. In 2022 I visited USA three times for a total of almost 2 months.
Yes I work for 3 weeks this June and my boss covers my routine tasks. My boss takes 6 weeks in the summer and I do his routine tasks. It's grand. I don't feel bad and he doesn't feel bad.
As for Japan: Per work hour. It's incredibly common to spend the night at the office desk. Workers sleeping at work a sign of "worked so hard, fell asleep". All "work hours". And all of this charade, because that's what it is, does NOT result in actual productivity. Shocker!
It’s a political thing. If labour laws mandated that employees have to get paid for any time spent at work the employers would make damn sure workers get their ass home to sleep in a proper bed instead of at the desk. Capitalism actually fixes that shit if there is an monetary incentive for the employer. First step is a law that mandates employers have to track employee overtime, otherwise it becomes a culture of employees "donating" overtime to their workplace to carry favour or "because everyone does it" which has health detriments for the employee and no monetary disincentive for the employer. The law also needs to be kinda heavy-handed. Company would be liable for exhaustion related illnesses *if* they don’t follow labour laws. The labour laws would be based on … oh I don’t know, maybe human biology?
8 месяцев назад
While your comment, referring to the last chart shown, is wrong, it is correct in it's underlying meaning. They are indeed much less productive per hour because (and a lot of other reasons) of the long hours that they make. But the chart gives a really warped sense of scale. It seems the 0-point is not 0. It's supposed to be 100 with an addition each year due to inflation compensation. And each year earlier is less then 100. Check this one out, Japan is suddenly at 104. data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm Or wikipedia, where 2015 is set to 100: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity#Historical_development
I do not know, but some countries cannot let their workers work overtime much. If company needs overtimes from a worker over set limit, it is mandatory for company to set up another position and hire another worker (i think A, D )
51 years old German here. I (as most people here) have 30 paid vacation days off + public holidays (depending on the year, probably 7 or so avg?) + as many paid sick days as I am sick. This year I got Covid and was off (paid) for 4 more weeks. If we get sick during vacation, we get the vacation days back. My (really cheap) insurance also adds "Kranken-Tagegeld" (sick day money) and "Krankenhaus-Tagegeld" (hospital-day-money), that is, in addition to paying my medical and hospital bills, after some days I also get some money from my insurance to cover inconveniences while being sick. Of course, while I get my normal income...
@@patrickseidel218 Aber nicht alle davon fallen auf Werktage, 7 dürfte eine gute Schätzung sein für den Durchschnitt an Feiertagen die auf Arbeitstage fallen pro Jahr.
50+ German here, 65 days vacation this year, been sick home for 14 months untill last October.... still employed in the same company since 37 years...and not broke from Med bills! €27 per 3 months is cheap, for my meds!
for the americans: the fee per day in hospital is 10€/day. and if u are in hospital longer than 29days (combined within a year) u dont have to pay anymore. so its basically max 290€. if ur sick for longer than 6 weeks for the same illness within a year ur employer doesnt pay ur salary anymore and ur healthinsurancecompany pays u around 70% of ur normal income. u can insure urself for these costs for around 30/yr (for only hospitalfee) up to mostly 200-300€/yr for both and some other extras, like (single bed room, chiefdoctor treatment and so on...). but one health related thing that is costly even in germany is teeth. a checkup and the minimal treatment is free. but who wants a cement fronttooth when one breaks? so u have to pay up for a lot of things at the dentist and/or orthodontist.
@@irenezaleski4989 Makes sense with the past month where I work. Been getting everyone to use up their holiday hours before it resets on the 1st of march. I only had 9hrs left so took a random half day and finish few hours early on another.
And if you dont get the vacation in 1 year and get it not in next year till 1 . MARCH. THE VACATION IT GONE WITHOUT get money. Is gone if you dont said when you want to get it. Your company ask you in the beginning of the year when you want to get the vacation days. If too much co workers want the same time you have to talk . In your team . At the end the company have the last word. So every time a year enough workers in work. And if you not tell your vacation days they remember you. . In the following year only till 1. March time to get the old vacation days. If not till then you lost them without getting money for them Then they are gone. But then you have a diskussion with your company leader.
@@rh-yf6cg yep I'd have lost those hours if I'd not took them and not take them into the next set like we used to. Think a lot of companies here do that now.
Paid vacations.... yea but where does that money come from? The gov? The company? NO! FROM YOUR OWN PAYCHECK THE 11 OTHER MONTHS OF THE YEAR! Atleast in sweden.. doubt very much its different in other eu places.... if you are employed u have like 6% or something subtracted from your pay to be used as pay for your vacation. So if u quit a job right b4 vacation u get that money paid out to you. Same if ur a teenager and just work a summer job... those vacation pot money is still subtracted and u get it when u quit. Atleadt that's how I remember it.. its 30+yrs ago. ..
As a German, I would not sign an employment contract in which I was only guaranteed 20 vacation days per year. These 20 days are only what is required by law, but I have never worked for a company that offered less than 28 days per year. You only get 20 days here in low-paid jobs at most.
Correct, 30 days paid vacation is pretty much standard in Germany. Then you have 10-13 holidays depending on the state, if you're lucky, you live in Augsburg for an extra paid holiday for a total of 44 paid free days.
I've got a Masters degree and only 20 days. But well, I wouldn't call my job work. It's more like doing what I'd do anyways, but get paid well for it. So I'm having next month off, because I forgot to take my vacation days last year... again...
I currently have vacation because I had 12 days left from last years 30 days. Christmas time was busier than expected so I didn’t want to use them between the holidays. In 2020 working in a medical field I was temporarily prohibited from taking vacation and when I switched jobs they had to pay out my full 30 days. Tax on that was nasty though.
I really enjoy my 30 vacation days and it is normal to take two weeks for summer holidays. Also three weeks is ok and the best opportunity to travel. We have to use all the vacation days, it is really rare to get paid for not using the days off.
FREEEDOM AND DEMOCRACY YEAHHH - The Sound of brainwashed Americans who think its normal to be sweating their ass off to make a billionaire that much richer, and anything that could impede on that is 100% full on socialist dictatorship communist policed state.
American freedom is the freedom to do things, in this case be horrible to your employees. European freedom is the freedom from having things done to you, in this case being abused by your employer. This concept of freedom from and freedom to goes through most other aspects of society, freedom to shoot people versus freedom to be shot, freedom to track your customers versus freedom from being tracked, freedom to put whatever you want in the food you produce versus freedom from eating food with additives that are bad for the consumer et certera. One has freedom from oppression the other has freedom of oppression.
Something else you'll never see (at least, not in the UK) is managers expecting employees who are calling in sick to find cover for themselves... it's almost as if it's the MANAGER'S job to manage!
The question of "who can afford more than one week of vacation?" is a depressing one. For a start, a vacation doesn't have to be a big expensive affair. You don't have to fly off to Europe or Mexico or California. You can vacation nearer home. You can go and stay with family or friends (or have them come to stay with you). You can go camping or staying in cheaper hostels. You could just stay at home and take day trips (the so-called "staycation"). It's all about finding time and space to relax, switching off from work, not packing your kids off to summer camp for a month but actually spending time with them. If you want to sit around playing computer games for a week, go for it. If you want to build a patio and repaint the house, now's your chance. You can take a week at a time, or odd days here and there. But having the opportunity to travel is really, really valuable.
I'm fascinated by how many Americans think it's one consecutive month off. No. You get 20/25/30 working days off per year. You can take a week at a time, you can take 2 weeks at a time, you can take one day a week for 30 weeks straight. You may use it however you want.
That depends. In professions like teaching or emergency services your leave is allocated to you. For example schooo teachers must take the leave entitlement at the time the schools are off.
@@Vinz3ntR it’s a lot longer than two months here. Six weeks summer, one week October, two over Christmas, one over Easter and a few random public holidays here and there. It’s not just teachers. My husband is in emergency services and his leave is allocated also.
I'm a Brit. I worked in California for a few years. The best thing that came out of the US is my wife. There is nothing that would tempt me to work there again. Even when your day should end people don't want to leave because they think that they will be regarded as doing less than others. I was made to feel guilty if I took vacation time. Here, back in the UK, my employer makes me take all of my 25 days plus vacation days and they are not impressed if I stay late, except on special circumstances, or don't take my breaks for lunch. Productivity increases when people don't get over fatigued or enjoy their job. People in the UK and EU go to work to live they don't live to work
Here staying always late at work means either that your boss is incompetent and you have too much work delegated to you or you are incompetent and can't do your job.
Well duh, everyone knows 'Murica is the greatest country in the world! Except for the fact that in Europe, we have free (or at least affordable) healthcare and education, higher wages, more vacation time, better infrastructure, healthier food, and a higher life expectancy (also caused by a lower chance to get murdered by gangs or police). But hey, just minor details, right?
@@OnkelTotto Is it proven that there are 2 parties? Or is it just one nationalist party that has two wings - one is more conservative and the other is more far right…? 🤔🤔😁😁
What to do on vacation if you’re on a tight budget: Go to the park, visit nearby cities, spend time with family/friends, relax, catch up with your sleep, read, do what ever you want, do NOTHING (really important)…
I would add: do some sport, small tours, hikes around lakes, forest. It really doesnt have to be expensive. In european parks (if there is good weather) u can See people doing sport, eating, reading, enjoying sun, just laying on the grass. Some european cities have also free or cheap tickets for museum on some days. They are a lot of posibilieties.
Yeah. Nothing beats a long three day weekend, where you barely manage to crawl from the bed to the sofa and back. It can do wonders for your happiness.
As an European to other European people: Let's protect our labour rights that many people before us fought for and let's not take them for granted, or we'll lose them. I don't want to end up like the yankees, living to work. Getting sick leave is a right. Getting paid vacations is a right. The 8 working hours a day is a right gained by hard struggles (remember the Chicago martyrs, for instance) Striking is also a right. Workers, unite and win the fight!
Workers, unite and win the fight? This looks as you are planning to set up cooperative. Not bad idea, but the whole point of negotiation between unions and employers is to achieve deuce.
@@JensPilemandOttesen Yeah, sure, I work with robots right now, and... it's often very annoying, they are so stupid. I know that's not their fault, but moving around the werehouse with them getting in the way all the time can be really irritating. I don't doubt that with time they will get better, but for now... Give me a break.
Our constitution says nothing about vacation days, but we have quite good (although a bit complicated) labour law. 20-26 work days of holiday. Poland here.
I worked and lived in the United States for 13 years and THIS was one of the reasons i moved home. You work for a small company in the U.S you CAN take some time off.....but its unpaid and if you want to take more than a week per year your employer would normally try and deswade you or guilt trip you into not taking more than a week, That and the average work week is 45 to 50 hours per week, ZERO right for employees, so glad i am no longer there. ( I am Scottish and have been back home for a year )
I worked for a US for 30 years and I lived in the US for 3.5 years in the late 1990. My luck was that I was there on a „loan“ from my German home location. So I was there with my German labor contract. The deal was that I had my 6 weeks German vacation but had to obey the US bank holidays. But I also must say, the project u was in was intense and stressfull. The leadership actually urged us to take all our vacations and don‘t cut it short.
Swede here. I have 35 days of paid vacation a year. That’s not including “red days”, holidays like Easter, Christmas, midsummer and so on, which of course are vacation days by default. About the workload being heavier for the ones whom are still at work while you’re on vacation. Yeah, they’ll get a little heavier load for a couple of weeks, but then you’ll get a heavier load when you get back and they go on vacation. Solidarity baby, works like a charm.
It's because teams in America work on skeleton crews. Many doing the work of 2 or 3 ppl. So 1 person leaving really makes an impact and overloads the system in terms of workload.
About 20 years ago I worked in a company in Finland that had a clause in the job agreement that if I have to answer the phone after working hours, I get 1 day worth of pay. Doesn't matter if the phone call takes 2 minutes or 1 hour, but if it takes more than 1 hour then you are also entitled to overtime pay on an hourly basis on top of that. The purpose of this was obviously to stop calling people after working hours and it worked.
I think France made it illegal to contact employees for work after work hours - which makes a lot of sense to me. Back when I was working in the automotive industry, my team lead would habitually call me back into the office after work hours because I was the only design engineer who could do a certain task for our client at the time, Mercedes. So I'd end up putting in 10-12-hour days at least 3 times per month. Becoming a freelance marketer back in 2018 and leaving the UK was the best choice I ever made.
Hello from Finland! 🇫🇮 Now retired. After 44 years working I really find it so fantastic I did have about 6 weeks in a year holiday days. 4 weeks in summer, 2 weeks in winter. On a holiday you don't have to do anything but relax and enjoy normal life.
so true ! 30 days today is a standard in Germany. But this only holidays. As I heard in the US you may have 2 weeks paid days off, but this include also days you are sick ? In Germany we have another 6 weeks fully paid if you are sick, followed by another max. 72 weeks paid by the insurance ( about 60-70% of your last income net per month)
Yeah, same. 34 for me in The Netherlands on 1 FTE. I only work 32 hours, so I get 80% of that, but also only need 4 max to take a week off and that's if I don't plan it with national days off.
Yeah 30days + holidays is the average here too and that does come down to 6 weeks considering you were already off on weekends. Never used it in a row personally but its nice to have 2 weeks off now and then for some traveling around europe.
Yes. I don't know how the US families manage school holidays with younger kids, that just can't hang around home alone. On the other hand, half of Reddit and most of Insta and FB men (on Posts about family issues) always (literally ALWAYS) immediately come up with "bUt i wOrk anD shE hAs dO dO hEr fAiR sHaRe aT hOmE tHeN, nOt mE agAiN!!!!", so I guess, people assume that mothers generally stay at home (although I believe that's just some redpiller-lie, not reality) and that kind of nonexisting worker's rights probably enforce that forever.
It's part of your employers job to make sure they have enough people to cover for vacation, sick leave and so on. So why feel bad. Plus the collegues take vacation as well, you cover for each other, so it's still fair.
Sometimes that is tough if you are talking about a senior specialist. Sometimes a specialist is doing the work of three or four people, and coverage is just not economically viable.
@@dale116dot7 how? I know that this is not a case of every European country, but some countries, by law, avoiding unlimited overtimes and if threshold is crossed, company must hire another worker (create a new position). I do not live in such country, but If I am working for three, I ask for three salaries and nonstandard overtimes like double at least (standard 25% more and 35%more if it is risky job). (last time I was asked for unusual job while at home and asked double even it was only a few hrs homeoffice one evening and a few for corrections another evening) Through the whole Europe employer needs you, you do not need him (case when you are experienced worker, it is hard to exchange even sweeper nowadays when plenty of UA people are available)
To clarify the August thing in France. Most people tend to take their holidays in August, particularly civil servants. However, those people usually take only two weeks of vacation not the whole month. But for about two weeks in August, there are so few people around that it makes more sense for companies and administrations to close than to try running. Restaurants, bakeries, etc may close but not at the same time. Hotels and supermarkets are open. In tourist areas, supermarkets are even open on Sundays.
I lived in America through the work and travel program. I spent three summer seasons there as a student. It's a country of extremes. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty, extreme entertainment and extreme boredom. After completing my master's studies, I had an offer to work as a civil engineer in the USA, but I declined and opted for Germany. Now I live and work in Norway. The work-life balance I have here in Norway is something I couldn't achieve in any other country. 30 days of paid leave (6 weeks), plus 2 weeks of collective leave (one for Christmas and New Year, the other for Easter). And it's all paid. If I get sick and can't go to work, it's all paid. It's incredible how little stress there is in this country. Getting fired or not receiving a raise is almost unheard of for people with permanent jobs.
I couldn't imagine working in the US with the ever-present possibility that you can just get fired on the spot with no recourse; with no paid vacation; no paid sick leave; no paid parental leave; etc.
@@razorwireclouds5708 in fact, their salaries are much higher than ours, and tjey have to pay their own medical care, spare money if they lose their job, and so on. They just have to behave like responsive adults and manage their money instead of having high taxes and let the goverment do it .
@@Jsmithsurv Their salaries are higher but not MUCH higher. And so what? They pay 2x more per year for healthcare than the average EU citizen and they get worse health outcomes. The life expectancy in the US is shit. Also, don't be silly - Americans aren't responsible adults. They've got more debt. They're also wasteful, overweight and sedentary. Their cities are atrocious and car-centric. Their infrastructure is a century behind any modern EU country's. Their violent crime rates are through the roof. The reason we have the best infrastructure, services and health & safety standards in the world IS government.
@@Jsmithsurv At the end of the day, there isn't much financial difference for that amount of stress. That's why I'm working in Norway now. I could have an annual pre-tax salary of $110,000 in the USA, and I have $75,000 in Norway, with taxes around 28-30% when everything is added up at the end of the year and tax refunds come in. Tax is reduced for individuals with children, those with mortgages, car loans, etc. But I don't worry about health insurance; all my sick days are paid, even if I'm on sick leave for a year or two or three. If I were to lose my job, the state would pay me the average salary I've earned in the last 12 months for 2 years. I have 6 weeks of paid vacation, plus 2 weeks of collective vacation, totaling 8 weeks. + public holidays. And nobody minds if I take a day off on a Friday or Monday to have an extended weekend and travel somewhere. The important thing is that the work is completed on time. If I don't feel like going to the office, nobody holds it against me for working from home. Nobody watches the clock when I arrive at the office and when I leave. It's a completely relaxed atmosphere, and all projects are completed on time. Happy company, happy customers, and I'm happy too because I can organize my time as it suits me. When I have children, I'm entitled to an additional 12 days of paid leave per child for "child's illness." If I have a doctor's note and the child is seriously ill, I can take as much time off as necessary until the child recovers. And it's paid. Leaving work to drop off or pick up a child from daycare/school is also paid, and nobody has an issue with it. Currently, I commute about 50km to work, about 35 minutes by train. This is calculated at the end of the year, and I receive a portion of the money back from the tax office. There are many benefits. I know people who have 2-3 children, a mortgage, car loans, but their tax rate is 20% when everything is taken into account. Singles pay the highest tax. So those lies about people in Norway paying 40-50% taxes, lies that are sold to Americans, that's not true. Americans, when they pay everything we pay through taxes, have the same or less money.
Hello from France Ryan! Depends if you live in rural zone or in cities, but normally even in the summer, you should be able to buy your baguette and croisants and other groceries. Fun fact: because French revolution happened on a bread crisis, in Paris, bakeries owners must take their summer vacation in July or August and then work the other month so bread is always an available comodity
To clarify French vacations, we usually have 5 week for the entire year but we are rarely allowed (and rarely want) to take 5 consecutive weeks of vacations, even 4 is pretty rare. We usually use from 2 to 4 weeks during summer and keep the rest for one or two small pauses. Not everything is closed during august, It's only companies where all the employees are in vacation at the same time (small and family companies or the ones where summer is too hot to work). For the others that are open you have to know that not everyone take their summer vacations at the same time, it's mostly during August, then July and finally June and September. The companies generally have less clients and still compensate by making their students work full time during this period. In companies that don't have fixed vacations: we are not the ones asking for vacations, our boss is the one asking us when we want (of course we can't get what we want if everybody ask for the same week). They have to pay us every day not taken and they don't want to do it. Our idea of working to live and not living to work is also what make us more effective, basically: we work only at work so when we work we are 100% working (okay maybe not 100% and not everyone but you get it).
To add something to your comment is that in France your can, by Law, use at least 4 weeks of vacation, and 2 of those 4 weeks have to be consecutive. The date to use those 4 weeks are between may and end of october.
@@kitsune2077 "The date to use those 4 weeks are between may and end of october" uh... what ? I'm french, and I've never seen that. I've always taken 2 weeks in December / January, 2 weeks in July / August, then the rest doted around in the year. PS : just looked at it. you are required to be allowed a consecutive 2 week vacation period between may and october. not 4.
@@seedz5132 alors je le refais en français 😁 Légalement : Tu PEUX poser jusqu'à 4 semaines consécutives (plus est interdit) entre le mois de mai et octobre. Il est obligatoire de poser 2 semaines consécutives sur cette période. Donc si tu poses 4 semaines de vacances, tu as 2 semaines des 4 qui sont obligatoires et doivent être consécutives. 😉 Et dans le code du travail tu DOIS poser 4 semaines entre le 1er mai et le 31 octobre. Si tu ne le fais pas cela rajoute les jours de fractionnement. En gros si tu ne poses pas 4 semaines (4 sem. consécutives ou 2 semaines consécutives obligatoires+2 semaines éparpillées) entre le 1er mai et le 31 octobre parceque ton employeur t'en empêche, alors il te dois des jours de congés supplémentaires appelé jour de fractionnement. Si tu ne poses pas ces 4 semaines de ta propre décision, ton employeur dois te faire signer un papier de renonciation aux jours de fractionnement. (Nb cette partie dépend de l'accord d'entreprise) payfit.com/fr/fiches-pratiques/conges-fractionnement/#:~:text=Les%20jours%20de%20fractionnement%20selon,31%20octobre%20de%20chaque%20ann%C3%A9e.
UK holiday request process - Staff “Can I take some time off?”, Manager “sure, check the system and put it in”. I had 8 direct reports, the only rule was ONE of us was in the office at all times, apart from public holidays.
I am from Czech Republic and we have simmilar system, i believe its in most of european countries. Usualy the boss is bothering you in March, why you still haven´t planned your summer holiday. 😆
I'm in Ireland, we have a leave reservation system in my company, it shows us available days, and if you want it you book it and get immediate confirmation. I don't ask anyone to use my leave, nobody gets to decide if I can take leave, I just book the days I want from the available days.
This is most UK companies but usually there is a notification period, usually 2 weeks in advance where you need to request at least 2 weeks in advance. So long as there are enough people on, you can take vacation whenever. I feel the law is part of this since while the company is required to give you vacations throughout the year, it is not required to give specific days, a company that makes it essentially impossible for an employee to get their legally mandated 28 days can find itself in very big legal trouble, so no company pushes it, worker's rights is an amazing thing, perhaps the US should try them out at a federal level. Actually, will go further, since there are laws that most companies have to abide by, it is not unknown for people to get into trouble for taking no vacation at all, or for managers to point out when you're leaving too many days towards the last quarter of the year.
I just told my boss I'm going to Australia for 6 weeks in March 25 to go to a relatives wedding, not a problem. Most larger firms employ enough staff to cope with staff taking holidays as long as it's planned in advance. It should be the businesses problem to plan ahead.
I just tell my boss I'm not coming in on monday. For longer holidays i discuss with my co workers who is doing my work while I'm away. Apart from summer/winter holiday season when everybody wants to be away at the same time (and boss is sometimes needed to decide who have to be in the office) I'd be quite upset if my boss dares to interfere with my holiday plans.
In Ireland I MUST take my annual leave in the year, I can't transfer any holiday days to next year and I won't be paid out the balance if I don't take. Full time workers have guaranteed 20 days paid annual leave and part time is calculated 8% of worked hours. On top of that we have 10 days of bank holidays which are also 100% paid.
In Poland you can move your vacation to next year - but you need use them till end of August (earlier was end of March). We have 20 - 26 paid vacation days (20 as you start working, 26 after few years )
@@Rubeus1000in Lithuania its up to company.its their policy to let move vacation days to next year or not. But by law , after 3 years you lose yiur vacations...so you can accumulate 60 days of vacations, but not more
In Germany you have till the end of March to take the remaining vacation days from the year ago. I still have 10 days to waste, need to make up my mind where I wanna go. :) And then there's 25 more for 2024 (legal minimum, and I HAVE to take them). Fully paid, obvsly. We have to pay rent and food, vacation or not, after all!
I'm in Ireland also. I get 28 days paid leave plus public holidays and I can carry five days over to the next year. I can also buy leave if I really want to. I usually go over to mainland Europe and the UK two or three times a year.
I’m here on the other side of the world. You may have seen this online but full time Aussie workers get four weeks paid leave, plus sick leave, maternity leave, bereavement leave, and public holidays. Public holidays add an extra 13 days off a year. For example, unless you work in retail or hospitality, pretty much the entire country shuts down between Christmas Eve and New Years Day. But you get those as public holidays and so you don’t have to use paid leave for Christmas or NYD. Part-timers aren’t left out, either. They get the same leave, prorated to the hours they work. Casuals get paid more as they don’t get it but recently the government here brought in five days sick leave that they pay for casuals. We also introduced the ‘right to unplug’ rules to stop being contacted outside of your regular hours.
one man cannot win a war. How you can take more men to the fight while everybody believes that joining is communism (until it is not joint venture, that is OK, its capitalism)
Some countries don't emulate Greece, apparently that's what you long for instead of a big American house and a million dollars for your retirement. In America we don't know what "austerity" means, but Europe does.
The reason why Japans stats are so low on that graph is because it's fairly common that you only leave work when your boss does, which means that a lot of people spend their time at work not really working. At least that's what I've heard from a lot of expats.
Partly true, but those hours are not counted in in these statistics since they are illegal unpaid hours done "voluntarily". There are a lot more reasons why Japan's numbers in efficiency are low, main one is related to karoshi
I wonder if the data is affected by the year 2021 which was an abnormal year as different countries in different parts of the world were coming out of covid lockdowns in different ways. Some countries were still stuck with strict restrictions, with some sectors not actually open or working properly or only slowly returning to work, Japan may have been still stuck with the tightest restrictions alongside China.
Yeah i visited japan talked a lot with locals and that was what ive heard from few office workers. Alltho they were drunk on their lunch breaks as its socially acceptable there so im not sure how much efficient work they were going to get done when they go back to office.
vacationdays is not just about travel, is also for example about able to fully relax for a few days/ spend a weekend orso with family/ able to finally able to finish that room you are trrying to renovate in your home/spend time actually enjoying your envirment or that forest you live near to
If you go on leave, sure your co-workers might have more work to do because they have to cover for you, but also, you cover for them when they go on leave. You're all in it together, Ryan. Something that seems to be lost on a lot of Americans.
Here in Poland you get 20 days if you don’t have a higher education degree and 26 if you do, or have already worked for over 10 years overall. I don’t ask for vacation, I tell when I’m going on vacation. The law says that any worker with a contract of employment is required to take at least 2 weeks of uninterrupted vacation to rest. You literally have to. It is customary to tell your employer at the beginning of the year when are you planning to take those two weeks, just so they can plan for it. The rest of the 16 days that are left you take whenever, no questions asked. 4 of those days can be taken with zero notice or explanation. It’s called “on demand”. But usually you put in the form 1-2 days prior to be fair to the company so that they can prepare for you not being there. Employee protection laws here say that unless the company can prove that it will literally stop functioning without you, they can’t stop you from taking your vacation. Vacation is not a privilege, it’s a right. And that's on top of around 13 days of different religious and national holidays during the year. So I guess that makes 39 days in total :)
@@julianpierwotniak7690 these 20 or 26 do not depend on education, but on how long you work in total. (in all places from your first job where you have a 1/2 time or more contract). Education helps because the time spent studying is included in this period, so after master you need only 5 years, and if you study and work in the same time you get 26 days after masters.
these 20 or 26 do not depend on education, but on how long you work in total. (in all places from your first job where you have a 1/2 time or more contract). Education helps because the time spent studying is included in this period, so after master you need only 5 years, and if you study and work in the same time you get 26 days after masters.
@@julianpierwotniak7690 I don´t know how it works in Poland, but here in Slovakia we have parental leave up to 3 years for women, 6 months for men. we usually share 30 months for women, and 6 months for men.
Well you Poles messed up, you should have voted for 20 weeks of time to rest. Someday you company will demand 20 weeks where they don't have to pay the slackers.
Italy here. The point is that "vacation" here does not only mean traveling here and there but ALSO resting in your own city, seeing beautiful things, friends, relatives. Or simply reading a couple of good books.
I feel that there is also a big difference in how we look at the holiday itself. I, for example, have used all my holiday so far by staying at home and just relaxing. I don't need to go anywhere and if I did I would take the train to the countryside and walk around, see some hystorical towns and stuff like that. It's not a very expensive affair and yes I don't have a family to take care of, but even if I did I'd imagine a holiday in a similar way. So I can imagine a week of that traditional vacation that I save up for money and the rest is just extra time to just relax/refresh.
In the 1980s I started work at a Swedish owned factory here in England. I worked as a welder. The company paid all the fees and paid time off. for me to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree. Then paid and provided time off for me to continue my studies at York Uni. They made me UK Production Manager. No successful company should ever be allowed to develop two sides Management v Workers. All need to be on the same side. Taking care of each other is what a successful team does.
When you have plenty of vacation time, you don't feel the need to go away every time you take time off so it's not a case of needing to afford to travel every time. You can spend time with family, host friends visiting you, get a project done, go to events, take care of those non-urgent health things that don't merit sick leave, or just chill out for a week. The biggest scramble for vacation time is always during school holidays and half term breaks as parents need or want to spend time with their kids - often just doing things locally or within day trip range.
In Hungary basic vacation time is 20 days/year until you reach age 25, then you get +1 day and from that time every 3rd year you get +1 vacation day. When you're 45 your vacation days reach 30 days/year, that's the maximum by age, but every children counts +2 days up to 3 children (the 3rd child counts +3 days) until their age 16. So if you are 46 year old and have 3 children under 16 you have 37 days/year. By law you control 80% of the vacation days, so you decide when you want to go holiday and 20% is controlled by the firm, but in practice you always have to come an agreement with your boss.
How to afford your vacation? In the Netherlands you'll get "vacation money" Your employer saves 8% of your salary over the year and pays it in may. So people always have (some) money to spend.
Yeah, that is common also in the Nordics. It used to be return from summer vacation -money. It is a historical things, which was based on when good employees were hard to come buy... so this "rewards" was paid once the came back from the vacation (and not go work for a another company/employer). Similarly the vacation day amounts "might" be misleading. As in some countries (again history), a work week is calculated as Mon to Sat (so 6 days), even though people only work five days a week... So 30 days of vacation, actually means 5 weeks of vacation. Not sure if the graph was adjusted for this or not... But still, generally speaking. Europeans have 4 weeks off during the summer holiday period. And then another week off during the winter (often i Feb, a.k.a. sports holiday of skiing holiday). And in some countries, your holiday quota might raise due to local labor union negotiations if you've worked long enough for the company (or are simply just old enough). Plus naturally other more lax rules and agreements can also be made. Simply meaning, that in every country that follows the EU directive MUST give four weeks of vacation. Most countries and/or local agreement actual give more... and as a worker you can again negotiate even more paid vacation (albeit, you need to be a really valuable employee).
oh, and in some countries that "vacation money" can also be converted to actual vacation days (if you value free time from work more than $$$). I've done that a few times, and had 8 weeks off, plus still a bit of "vacation money" still to be paid by the employer. Which was nice.
@@cookielady7662 Kinda. It's a guarantee, regulated by law, that you actually have money left over for vacation. In Norway, the minimum percentage allowed by law to be saved is 12,5% - whilst many companies give you even more of the salary as vacation money. I am 100% sure that if the legal requirement for this went away, and companies stopped doing this, that many people would not be able to think long-term and put off the money themselves - thus making their vacations horrible, and making them even worse workers when they got back from vacation than they were before.
In Poland we have 26 days (20 in some cases)... There are also some extra days. For example if the bank holiday is on Saturday, the employer needs to "give back" this day to employees. Every year there is at least one day like this. So one day extra for free. We also have paid sick leave up to 3 months. Sometimes employers also gives some extra money to employees for vacation...
I am from Germany, work a 35-hour week and have 33 days paid vacation. By law, I have to take at least 10 days' vacation in a row once a year (i.e. 14 days including weekends). But I usually prefer to take a whole month. That's the only way to really 'wind down'. It's also good for my vacation replacement: then they learn something. And because everything never runs as smoothly as when I'm on duty, my employer also learns what I should be worth to him 🙂
@@Leenapanther No. 40h would be "full time". I am now a "senior engineer" ... but I haven't received a pay rise for over four years ... and have simply decided that I now only want to work 35 hours a week (for the same money). As my employer wants to keep me, he has simply accepted this.
We don't really "request" our holiday time here in the UK. We just tell the company we work for when we want our time off. There are exceptions to this. For example if you work for a company that has a particularly busy period in the year then it might not be possible at that time. But people tend to know these things and don't plan holidays for that time of the year.
Not sure if this came up already, but just to be clear, vacation in Europe means paid vacation. Meaning, for example in Finland employer has to pay salary for the 4 week summer vacation and 1 week winter holiday (5 weeks in total paid vacation), making it possible to live and be on vacation. Then you can of course negotiate non-paid vacation on top of that, like extra 2 week summer holiday weeks, pushing it to 6 week summer vacation. That's actually really nice and allows you to forget work and recharge your mental battery.
I think I speak for most Europeans when I say that it's very uncommon to be going away during all your vacation time. Vacation just means time off work. You don't need to travel abroad during your vacation. Most people probably travel abroad for 1 or 2 weeks out of the year. That leaves 4-5 weeks of even more vacation+holidays. Time off work is very valuable; You don't have to really DO anything. However, it's very common over here for humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross to give money to those in need, so they can actually afford to go on a vacation.
I found, vacation time spent at home is much less effective than time spent abroad. It doesn't have to be far, find a place with a good price/value ratio and just be away. It doesn't have to be far. The point is to be out of the daily grind - in a hotel, you don't have to make up your bed, don't have to fix breakfast, etc. Not having to worry about those things makes vacation more effective than just staying at home.
Personally, I enjoy vacation time at home to be more relaxing than vacation time away from home. I do like to travel away sometimes, but only occasionally.
If you get 30 days of vacation, people usually take one longer break per year. Two to three weeks in the summer. Maybe even longer. Then they often take around the holidays: Christmas into new year. That's a week at least. All that is half or two third of your vacation time. Then people take maybe a week off in autumn or in spring. Depending on school holidays etc. Or they take a long weekend for a short trip. And then you take a couple of days around other bank holidays, Easter holidays etc.. Or you have a private business appointment and you need one or two days off. Or they renovate their house for a week or do garden work just to relax a little. It's not six weeks vacation at the beach. Who can afford to travel for six week anyways.
@@realulli Still, it costs money to travel. Especially with a family. Staying at home is not the same as the daily grid with work etc. It depends on how you spend your time and not where you spend your time. Some people maybe only have a small apartment. Others have a lot of space. Some people like to travel, others like to have some quite time at home.
In germany we *usually * get 30 days off plus paid holidays. 20 days are guaranteed by law but most employers will give you 25-30 (for ling term employees it's almost always 30). I wouldn't work anywhere where they wouldn't give me 30 days off and ive never encountered a job where they tried to offer less either. Edit: oh and you are also FORCED to take them. Your boss gets monitored and will get in trouble if you didn't take your vacation days. Taking vacation does not leave a bad impression here at all. There are just rules sometimes for example about how many consecutive weeks you can take off. Or when you can and can't take days off. Also you have to coordinate with your colleagues sometimes. Some jobs require you to hand in your vacation request by the end of the previous year so they can plan. In my jobs so far I just had to coordinate with my colleagues (and important projects) and tell my boss a week or two in advance.
I’m now retired but in my last job in the UK, I received 5 weeks paid leave plus all national (bank) holidays. My employer also operated a Time-off-in- Lieu (TOIL) system. This meant I could reclaim any time I worked over my contracted hours as paid leave.
When I was in the army we used to get “toil” days if we had to work a weekend or had a duty on a public holiday. It was more of a verbal agreement than an official policy though.
Czech here. Minimum by law is 20 fully paid days, most companies offer 25+ days as a bonus. I have 25 days vacation and 3 personal days for the years of service. We also get 6 sick days, but this up to the company, for which we do not need a doctor's note. We get extra 2 weeks of full sickness coverage without any extra insurance. Afterwards you get covered if you are still sick, but the money comes from the social health and is reduced, but this is where your life insurance kicks in to balance the income. On top of this, we have paid bank holidays, which in Czech is quite generous, 14 days a year in total, but they are not moved over to a working day if they fall on a weekend day. By law the employer has to allocate your holiday, in practice the employee suggests and employer accepts. If you do not spend your holidays, you get to carry them over to the next year, but after another 6 months it is up to you to decide with only a short notice to the employer, so they generally push you to carry over maximum 5 days to the next year. If you terminate the contract, you get to spend the unused vacation calculated for the passed work year prior your actual last day or get paid for the unused days. Productivity is not measured solely by the time you spend in the office. If you are not rested and have no work/life balance, how can you focus and do your job properly? Other than that, women get 27 weeks of paid maternity (slightly reduced salary) which they start a month before the birth. Father gets two weeks of paid parental leave to help mum with the baby. At the minimum, the woman HAS to take 6 weeks AFTER the baby is born, later it is up to her to decide, but the 6 weeks is a must have. Should anything happen to the mum, then the maternity leave is carried over to the care-taker. After the 27 weeks either parent can stay on a parental leave for up to 3 years. There is a fixed fund and you will receive a proportionate amount to the number of years/months you've decided to split it over to. The parents can be actually swapping on regulat basis as to who stays home (we did it with my husband for both kids). The employer has to keep your place for the duration of your maternity leave. For the duration of parental leave they have to be able to offer you either the same or similar (type/wage) position until after you return. I have to say - not bad at all :)
When we had 3 small children and I was a stay-at-home mother (UK), we couldn’t afford expensive holidays so we had a tent and went camping. Changed later to overseas every other year alternating with camping.
In Sweden the vacation starts with 25 days (5 weeks). But in many jobs the vacation increases with your age. Like when you become 40 years old you get 30 days (6weeks), and when you're 50 years old you get 32 days. Also, some companies give their employees 30 days vacation from the start.
I live in The Netherlands and get 20 vacation days a year by law, so that’s a minimum. Because I work in construction (on HQ), we have a very decent central labor agreement, CAO, which guarantees you more days. So I get another 8 days, inherited from the times that there was high unemployment and labor had to be redistributed, we call it ADV days. Because I’m over 55 years old, I get another 8 senior days. And we get another 13 days payed out in your salary which can be bought back. About 10 years ago we got a big pay raise for these days. So in total I have 49 days, of which I take 36 days, so I keep the extra salary.
Oh I love that idea of getting more rest as you grow older ! I wish we had the same amount in France. I work for National Post and as a mail woman I only get 3 more days after 55…
@@reinhard8053 You can in Belgium, but usually only as a last resort. For instance if you really weren't able to take those days, being on sick leave for instance. But the employers won't accept to pay all of your holidays. Besides, you loose too much of that money in taxes and because of the increased revenue you could end up in a higher tax bracket too. So not really interesting.
In France, a lot things are closed in August, but it's usually a week or two over the month so essential businesses don't overlap much and supermarkets stay open.
Okay, so, I'm Australian. I'm currently spending 2 weeks on vacation in Germany and can't imagine how people could have less than a month vacation and be able to actually enhoy anything. I'm currently on week 8 of my 58 week vacation and only just started to feel like the vacation has really started. (the 58 weeks off comes from salary sacrifice over the last 4 years - 4 years on, 1 year off)
Interested in how that works @Ausecko1 is that like a FIFO type setup where you work 3 weeks on / 1 week off? What would your 4 years salary sacrifice look like?
@@kevfitz8087 normal work, you just get paid 80% of the normal rate for 5 years. The 20% that you forfeit for each of the 4 years is what you're paid in the 5th year.
For your question at 20:20 . The Japanese, they have pretty much the same work mentality as in the US, so they hardly ever get their holidays. Combining their loyalty to their employers and their strong drive to serve the community, leaves them more tired, depressed and of course, far less productive.
To show this chart is just stupid, it doesn't have anything helpful for this topic, as it show annual growth of productivity (how much did the GDP per hour worked increase in a year). This doesn't say anything about the baseline productivity, Japanese could be 10 times more productive than Greek in that chart.
@@moe.m Indeed. On top of that, it's 2021. I wonder if there was anything that had an impact on productivity in 2020 that might have had an influence... btw. I also like the numbers about the vacation trips with 2 million trips and 800 billion spent. That's 400 thousand per trip? no wonder americans tend to not do those. :D A couple of zeros missing here.
On top of that : productivity has little to do with long working hours. It really depends on what you actually do during working hours. It’s like running a 100 meters or a marathon. It’s not the same speed :-)!
We are free because we don't have the government telling us we HAVE to do something. Unlike Europe, whose government and/or employers micromanage their lives and do tell them they MUST take time off. This is just a completely different mindset. If you don't like ours, fine. I don't like yours either.
@@cookielady7662 we get paid to be off work. Most people would rather have free time that is paid for rather than work that time. I get over 8 weeks paid vacation. Certainly would not swap that for only 2 weeks paid. And no paid? Forget it, that's indenture.
@@cookielady7662 Not your government is telling you what to do or not to do, you boss is. Why? Because you government is NOT telling you boss what not to do to you.
In Germany you have between 24 and 32 days of paid vacation. If you become ill and cannot work, your employer must continue to pay your full salary for 6 weeks, after 6 weeks, the health insurance company takes over and pays 80% of your last salary for up to 2 years. Your employer will also be unable or very difficult to dismiss you during this time.
In France I have 7 weeks paid vacation. We generally think good employees are employees who are focused to their work to be productive, and you are more productive if you’re generally happy, have a good work/life balance, have some time to rest and so on...
hello ! As a French woman I can explain to you what to do during your vacation time ! you don't have to go somewhere to be on vacation, but you can use your free paid time by spending more time with your kids, or do some renovations in your home, or do long walks in the woods to feel peaceful, or enjoy the company of your friends and family, or take the time to improve a hobby, or do the things you never have time to do when working, or sit in the sunshine with a good book or make some gardening or just DO NOTHING ! that's live man ! As a German viewer just said, we work for living but we don't live for working ! And our productivity is higher considering that we spend less time at work, daily and annually ! Just to be organized in your work, just to know what you have to do in the among of time dedicated to your job, and that's it ! Life is far too short to spend it on working all the time ! And I think that the obsession for work is also linked to the importance that you Americans give to earn money, as if it is determining who you are ! Bullshits ! For me it's a kind of slavery, addicted to work and money, at the point that you ask yourself quote "what would i do during my vacations if I had so many?" Just think about it ! Anyway I like your videos, always interesting to have an american's point of view ! Peace and happiness ! Bonne journée !
Ha, 2 of my former coworkers laughing in "taking 3 months off to bike across the South America and knowing they still have a job waiting for them when they get back". I usually end up taking the whole of December off myself because I never manage to use all of my vacation days. - Love from Prague
well that czechs economy and work system has issues thats so widely known that even czech people admit it and make videos about it. ...and humouristically portraying the standard czech dude bathing in beer instead of water, having a mullet haircut and always wearing the strangest of clothes
There is a difference between taking time off and paid leave. I could talk to my employer and take half a year or longer of unpaid leave (with preparation time of course), because they are always looking for more qualified workers and wouldn’t find a replacement anyway, but that’s just not paying when no work is done. Paid vacation is completely different. It’s part of your salary. It’s like more like an additional paid month per year.
@@ThePlumbeus Sure, some places you can take as long as you want of unpaid leave. Usually you can't expect to just come back to work like nothing happened though, have all your benefits uninterrupted, lunches paid...bosses happy to see you, etc.
For us, vacation is about resting and recharging energy and you can split your collected vacationdays in a reasonable way instead of using all 20-30 days at once. Or if you want to travel, half of them for travelling and last half for resting from travelling. And an another improtant thing is, if you get sick during your vacation, you can get back your lost vacationdays with a doctors note as an evidence, because being sick is not resting, your body is fighting against the sickness and after that your body need to recover from that fight to get in shape for work and of course it's not productive, if you infect other workers while your are going to work sick. It cannot be a good thing, that a whole division or more is going down, because of the infection-chain.
As a train driver, I had 5 weeks annual leave and 9 floating days. Worked a 4 day week. 35 hour week. Good pay. So sometimes, I could have 6 days off in a row sometimes too [so like another week]. Other weeks [rare] I could work 6 but the average was 4. So was off over half a year! Pay was good too as is the pension [I'm on it now]. We could also go off sick [also if you needed an operation etc. with doctors note]/have paternity or bereavement leave and still get full pay [sickness did go down to 50% after 6 months depending on circumstances].
I used to work for a French company that imposed a minimum three-week holiday in the summer because it was more efficient for the majority of their staff to be off at the same time. Some people had different times off to keep the show on the road, but the vast majority were gone for at least three weeks, some for four consecutive weeks!
European employment protection laws require six weeks to 3 months’ notice for firing. If you have been employed at the same job for several years, the notice period is sometimes legally extended to 6 to 8 months. So your opinion that it's not so easy to get fired in the USA sounds completely ridiculous to European ears.
Poor USA, i felt really moved about the way you guys are surprised by 1 month vacation. In Spain we have 1 week for easter, 2 weeks on Christmas and 1 month in summer, plus some 3-4 days weekends spreaded through the Calendário. Also if u dont have much money or your belong to a special group (like retired people) you have public vacation agencies that give huge discounts to tickets and hoteles. It is paradoxical that the land of the free is the land forced to live for work. Where is the freedom in that. (Btw japan was low on productivity per hour because they put in a lot of hours, so even if they have high productivity the ratio per hour goes rock bottom)
Again, doesn't seem like most Europeans get it. Sure, there are some Americans that want ridiculous amounts of time off, but many of us are fine with what we have. There's way more freedom in not having someone, most especially the government, constantly in your business telling you that you have to take vacation days. We're all about individualism here.
@@cookielady7662Same mirrored "issue" is those in the US longing for a System where a longer leave is atleast a Possibility. In the end, you are your master everywhere. Individuality is your own thing, less vacay, more, semi-vacant, whatever you need, different hurdles to get it. The vacation time and its use is baked into how the countries work. Half of Europe is part time small form farming, because that's what you have in your backyard. Picking thrash, collecting scrap and paper, is a school time mainstay. Keeps people modest and involved with nature, saves money and stays in place where propaganda for "grander", lobbied services would be found in no time. You cannot be forced to la down and Rest, you do what is needed, as you see fit. We semand rest, as europeans were brought up in a time, where only "worky work-work", was mandatiry labour, the rest was up to you, small kings, everyone on his own, payong tax, and doing work on lords Fields, or being a paid, or paying keeper. I am not joking when saying that half people live like a fantasy, easy mode, Michigan/Wisconsin resident, who also functions in a denser network where there's less mandatory travel, as the distances are 1/5 of the US for most. The practice of gardening and orchardry (and widespread beekeeping) is also a part of optimizing your surroundings until the levels of sustainable, middle age like, kind of point, where every bit of land has its caretaker, and there is less "abandoned" land, and that land also doesn't suffer much, as it is well taken care of, and is deliberately used to naturally(read in the mindspace of the locals) support produce production without swathes of strained land, and big farming is not done as "bigly", and is supportes by mostly naturally abundant water(for the most part). corporations cannot fir example take natural water, like some South states and their Nestlé and the like induced related droughts, hell there is too many likeminded people next to each other for that to ever fly and manifest. That's just the benefits of the "seemingly restrictive/uncomfortable" realities of living in Europe, where people are not as divided as for what to do with their land. Everybody, Portugal to Ukraine and the Baltics, is one foot in the garden, or their relatives are.
The obligatory number of vacation days is 23 (work days, without counting weekends and holidays) and there the holidays amount to 16 days (national, regional and local) a few usually fall on weekends. If you plan your vacation around weekwnds+holidays you can reach the described vacation time but it may vary. For example: Semana Santa (easter week) has one national holiday on Viernes Santos (Good Friday) and all autonous regions adds another day on either Thursday (most) or Monday after easter so for 3-4 vacation days you get a 7-8 days but that's thenonly holiday where it's guaranteed. During Christmass when the 25th is on the wekend, and so is New Year, you're left only with Reyes (Jan 6th) so you need to use more vacation days but since I live in Catalunya so we also have Sant Esteve on the 26th, unless the 25th is on Suturday :-(. At least the city makes sure that the local holidays are never on the weekend (one is always on a Monday and the other is if it falls on a weekend it is moved to the nearest work day).
@@cookielady7662nos da mucha pena en España (Europa) perder nuestra libertad individual y que nos obliguen a tener 4 semanas de vacaciones, además de dias en Navidad, Semana Santa, y en las fiestas de nuestra ciudad o pueblo. Y también nos da mucha pena ser poco trabajadores, ya que siendo 47 millones de habitantes tenemos 81 millones de visitantes al año 😂
UK Here: I used to manage a team of 50, with other managers reporting to me. On average my team had 30 days leave, plus 8 or 9 public holidays a year. With some of the team, just a few, we had to actively manage them to make sure they took all their leave. Luckily the company we were in allowed us to sell or buy holiday days. I always bought another 5, which gave me almost 7 weeks a year off. Live is for living, not working.
In the places I worked at here in Europe, regularly spending more time in the office than the allotted 42.5 hours was an indication that you were incompetent! Boy did that screw up my American colleagues who transferred here on learning all those extra hours they put in worked against them!
I'm Europeian, Norwegian. Vacation doesn't have to cost anything! Just walk into the woods, fish, swim...hunt. Or just sit on the balcony and have a beer. But that migth be the main difference between having 30 days off and 5. We don't have to stress to relax. ;)
I live in Poland and I have 4 weeks of paid leave in the summer to use at once or spread it out over time. As a truck driver who delivers products to city shops, bars, restaurants about 40 pallets a day, when I go on vacation I am replaced by 2 students with category B driving licenses, which means they cannot use a truck, but they can drive delivery vehicles (Ford Transit) which can hold 4 pallets . Students earn extra money during the summer and I rest. Of course, I often get calls from the guys who replace me, asking about the right place or method of delivery, it's hard to learn the route in a few days, but I'm mentally resting and it makes me laugh more than it stresses me out. After the holidays, the cars with lifts are much less used, but in a few months, Christmas comes and the demand for people and cars increases again and students come back again. This system works !
In Finland I have four weeks of summer vacation and one week winter holiday. How it goes, we usually plan our vacations by teams so that there is always enough people at the office and then when we have come to an agreement, we let our boss know that "here is our holiday schedule for the year" and that's it. Also, I do not carry my work phone or my laptop with me. I leave them at the office. My free time is my free time. Naturally my boss and close collegues have my private number for emergencies, but I have not had such emergency that they would have had to call me in my free time..
Australians are given 4 weeks annual vacation each year. You can accumulate them but once you hit 8 weeks your employer will strongly recommend that you take them. Plus for public holidays, eg, 4th July you are paid for it. Also if you have worked for the same company for 10 years (7 yrs in a Government job) you are given 13 weeks of vacation time, fully paid which you can take in one hit or you can split in half and still get paid your full wage
i wish we had that 10 year gift here in the netherlands. im already motivated to keep working long for a company. but that would motivate me even more hehe
Here the companies encourage and remind you to take you vacation. They want happy and not stressed out workers. Most employees in Germany have ca 25-30 days of vacation. If you are disabled, you get 5 more days by law. 20 is just the minimum by law for a 5-day-week employee.
In Italy August 70% of shops are closed. There are some regulation to keep opened some fondamental services like pharmacies, grocery stores, newspapers sellers and so on. For example if you go to a pharmacy that is closed for vacation on August, you'll find a on the pharmacy door an advertisment with all the nearests "pharmacies in turn" (pharmacy opened during that week) and this regulation is made so that there is always a pharmacy opened in any zone of the city
I live in Lithuania. I get 23 work days of vacation. The law also mandates that I am allowed to take 10 workdays in a row (12 days if I were working 6 day work weeks). Outside that, there are national holidays. Most businesses still stay open round the year and only close down on January 1st. The HR team in my company also follows up if we fail to plan our vacation times and have unused vacation time. The requirement is to notify 2 weeks in advance, but that is mostly to get the payments in order, which is not an issue if you ask for vacation pay with your salary. I will take my vacations and not travel anywhere. Might take a car trip within the country to visit relatives a few times or go to the beach during summer, but other than that I might take a week off and just chill at home, maybe work on some projects, play video games (in the near future just spend time with the kids)
Before I retired, if I didn't take all my 32 and a 1/2 days paid holiday (Does not include public holidays either), a certain proportion could be carried over to the next leave year. One of my colleagues use to save up an extra couple of weeks holiday over a three year period so he could spend 5 or 6 weeks in the US to visit his son and some American friends. We always worked out holidays amicably and equally at work, if any cover was necessary that was a problem for senior management. They're paid for that.
My last job was part time in UK, I still got my 4 weeks holiday, 2 of them I would go abroad and 2 just chill at home. Some big factories close in UK for 2 weeks so everyone has the same holiday in Summer, but you still get the other weeks owed. My job was involving helping people so if I was needed for a day out of my holiday (if I was home) I would get that day in lieu
2023 I had 36 days paid vacation - not including weekends, national holidays, paid sick leave, days off due to working longer on other days and the days of paid vacation I still had from 2022.
German here: 30 vacation days freely placed, plus 12 to 16 national holiday day, where everybody has holiday plus 2-day weekends each week. Plus unlited sick days, plus up to two years paid pregnancy/newborn leave.
I work for Dutch government and get 10 weeks paid vacation. Yes, you heard that right. I also can choose 5 weeks, other 5 weeks I can work and get paid. Its a choice. Personaly I choose 10 weeks vacation trough whole year. 1 week skiing, 1 week spring vacation to south Europe, 3 weeks summer vakation somewhere warm and in autumn we go 1 week somewhere else. Rest of it goes to free time for family and personal business.
Wow, that's a good job. I think that is the difference with Americans, for us a good job means good holidays, nice atmosphere, stability... but in the USA is about how much you make.
same here, dutch government. You work 40 hours, get paid 36 hours. Its called ATV and that is 26 days next to your mandatory 25 days. Your employer does activly remind you to take your vacation hours. It is frowned upon if you dont take them.
I'm Portuguese and the American situation is ridiculous. We get 24 days off a year, we get vacation pay, but it doesn't mean we are going on a vacation, necessarily. It's great to do your hobbies, hang out, do things at home, whatever you want without thinking about work.
German here: I have 30 days of paid vacation plus 13 public holidays and 2 extra holidays where we don't open (Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve). So it's 45 days off. I also have flexible work hours, so right now there are 80 hours of overtime sitting in my account waiting to be spent as free time. As for the process of requesting time off: I do have to coordinate with my colleagues. We can't all take time off at the same time. It's common courtesy to give the people with children time off during school breaks. In return, the people without kids can take time off in the off season and save a bit on the vacation itself.
The chart is saying that just because people are at work doesn't mean they are producing tangible output that contributes to the nations GDP. Japan does poorly because people work very long hours, but they are not being productive during a lot of that time as they are so tired. What we really see is that there is a balance between the hours people work and the output they produce. Too little is no good, but too much as the chart shows doesn't work either.
In april I'm going on a short 4-day trip to a resort on the border of Belgium and France with my wife and adult children. In may I'm going on a three day trip to Hamburg in Germany with my wife. In june I'm having an 18 day vacation in which I'll be going to Cyprus for 8 days to enjoy the sun and the Mediterranian with my wife. In july I'm going to the F1 race in Budapest, Hungary, for 5 days with my adult children. In august I'm going for a three day trip to Munich, Germany, with my wife and daughter where they will visit the Adèle concert and finally in september I'm having a 12 day vacation in which I'll be going ro Cyprus for 8 days (again) with my wife. That leaves me with 4 vacation days for the remainder of the year. The reason I'm able to have so much vacation is first of all I'm only working 4 days a week. I don't work fridays. So when I take 4 days off of work, I'm away for 10 days. Secondly, evere day I work, I work an extra half hour. This gives me 96 extra vacation hours every year. Yeah I definitely work to live.
I am dutch living in the US now. When I started my first job i think I had 20 vacation days, because contractwise we worked 36 hours but actually 40 we were compensated for the 4 hours a week we worked too much. I worked day-shift 7am-3pm which included a 30 minute lunchbreak. Because of labor laws if we worked 4 hours continuous we had the right for a 15 minute break. At 35 i started earning 'ouwe-lullen-dagen' (old-dicks-days which should be translated to old-persons-days, 1 day extra per 5 years) So at a time I had 22 vacation days and 8 compensation days. (6 weeks) plus the additional official national holidays. After a few years I was given the opportunity to switch to 4x9hrs. So I lost my 8 days, but a week's vacation would only cost me 4 days. On top of that we had a vacation bonus of 8% of our annual salary (more or less a 13th month) paid out in May. It was taxed higher so it wasn't actually an extra month but came close. Now in the US I have 12 vacation days only because I work already more than 2 years for this company, but max will be 3 weeks at 5 years. Indeed in the Netherlands it is more difficult to get fired, at my current company in the US if my project ends and I can't find another project the chance is pretty big I get fired. While in a similar job in Europe the company will look for projects for you to place you, here in the US a big part of that project-search is an employee responsibility.
Australian nurse - in my state most of us get five weeks of paid annual leave (six if you work weekends), with the option to purchase additional leave. We also have 13 public holidays (paid if you’re not required to work, overtime rates if you are). Across the country you also get long service leave. Originally created to allow workers to return ‘home’ (the UK) and available after 15 years’ continuous service, in most places you can now access it pro rata after as few as seven years. It accrues at a minimum rate of 0.867 weeks per yea; in my sector that’s the casual rate while permanent employees accrue 1.334 weeks per year, or 26 weeks after 15 years. Personal (sick and carer’s) leave is separate from this.
I live in Australia. I have, on several occasions been put on mandatory leave by the company I work for. Since leave days continue to accrue at 4 weeks per year having too much leave banked is seen by the company as a liability and therefore I've been told 'book some leave or we'll book it for you'. Not to mention that in my occupation is it common practice that a period of 2 weeks continuous leave must be taken each year. The logic behind this is that if anything 'shifty' is going on that you're actively covering up it will likely come to light if you're not there for 2 weeks. This is usually accomplished as there is a 2 week 'shut down' period during Christmas New Year where everyone is away except for 1 or 2 people manning the fort. This works out well because with the public holidays and weekends you generally only end up using 15 or 16 continuous days off while only using 6 or 7 of your mandatory 20 annual leave days.
Japan's productivity is low due to the massive amount of hours worked, approx 50hrs per week , but are expected to work unpaid overtime upto 80 hrs per month, so that's another 20 hours per week.
Yeah, and it also seems to be a thing in Japan that workers stay for overtime just to make a show of working hard, even if there is nothing to do actually.
7:16 there are also many European countries that have paid holidays that pushes them past France...someone please explain to her that Europe is not the same as France Lol 😂
@Ryan Many people in the US use up their "vacation days" not to go on formal "vacations," but instead for individual days off where there is an important event - for instance, my son's college graduation which is on a Wednesday. I live in the US in NJ, and I work at a remote job that is based in CA. I am VERY lucky that my company is quite generous with the leave policy... We all get (per year): - Unlimited PTO (vacation) days, usually limited to a maximum of 2 weeks at one time, with manager approval - 10 sick days (PTO is NOT to be used for sick days) - a few paid days off for bereavement of a close relative, or jury duty - not limited, but based on individual circumstances - 3.5 months of new parent leave for both mothers AND fathers, including adoptive parents Also, the entire company will close down for these additional paid days: - 10 paid holidays throughout the year - 3-4 "Wellness Fridays" - usually given in months that have no actual paid holidays - 2 entire weeks from mid-December to the beginning of January All of that said, there are a couple of caveats to this. - Some (but not all) managers tend to discourage using more than 20 days of PTO per year, or more than 1 two-week "vacation" - In most jobs in my company, no one does your work FOR you while you are temporarily out - all of your work is still left for you when you return from your vacation, so it's really not advantageous to take PTO unless needed - When I recently had a major lower spinal surgery, I requested a medical leave of absence. However, when my leave extended just a few days past 6 weeks because of my surgeon's schedule for followups, I had a bit of a hard time, and had to submit extra documentation from the surgeon as to why the extra 4 days were medically necessary. (My surgeon had initially completed paperwork stating that my recovery period would be 3 months, but the company only allowed me 6 weeks of job protection by law.) I expect to be returning to work at the 6-week and 4-day mark (so, still before 7 weeks) and, while I feel like that shouldn't have been a big deal for a company this generous with PTO, for some reason it was.
For most Slovaks, their vacation is what they are looking forward to the whole year. Work is work, it's not living, vacation is when you're living and can do whatever you want with your life, even if it meant sleeping all day or spending time at home with your family. We are a landlock country, so most people go to the beach to some other country - Croatia being the number one destination. Also Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Tunis. Many people have a one or two weeks of beach vacation every year and for some people it's something to brag about. But many people also spend their holidays here in Slovakia, in the mountains or visiting castles and towns, lakes or aquaparks. Going on a vacation is kind of a status thing, it's what you are supposed to do, because everyone is doing it. And when summer is close, people will ask you where will you go or where have you been on your vacation this year. When you are under 33, you have four weeks of paid vacation (20 work days) and if you are over 33 or if you are raising a child, you have five weeks (25 work days). And if you add all 15 bank/national holidays, if you are lucky, you end up with 35 or 40 free work days in a year.
Here in the Netherlands we believe a healthy employee is a good employee. How is a burnt out employee any good to a company?
Well, ask Elon Musk. You fire them and contract new „hungry“ people.
@@EVPaddy, sadly true.
There’s always a big queue of peasants ready to do more for less. Keep them scared and desperate and watch the profits roll in
Agreed,it’s the same for the UK too
This is the point!
Vacation doesn't mean you have to travel, just some time at home not thinking about work / relaxing, do some day trips, is good for you. you go back to work recharged and you'll be more productive.
Yes! When do you live your normal life, if you don't even have a vacation? I used to take 5 weeks in a row in the summer to be with my chidren in our summer cottage swimming, going to swimming etc..and we got holiday payment too "lomaraha" and that helped too!
I have 26 days of vacation , so usually taking 3 weeks in row to made a small trip in my Country just to see other city, and rest at my parents summer house on country side.
11 days I leave for unexpected things that may happen - for example I feel sick, but don't get doctor note to got paid sick day, .
One of the best holidays I had with my family was a bicycle tour from Regensburg to Vienna always following the Danube river. We did a lot of site seeing and slept in cheap Bed and Breakfasts. I think we 4 persons spent not more than 1500 Euro for the complete week. We all still remember this from time to time. The quality of a vacation is not at all linked to the money you spend.
To not be at my computer for week or 2 weeks is great 😂
Yep, it's your time off to do what you want with it, with that said, more time off where you are secure in your job and being paid for that time off, a lot more people are likely going to go on vacations.
Americans probably don't so much because the conditions are not favourable to allow them to do so, taking time off work and not being paid whiles having a vacation sounds expensive, but not only that, a lot of people like taking trips around the world for 2 weeks, sometimes longer, considering in the US they seem to discourage people from taking too long off work and the guilt that's pushed on Americans for doing so, makes it more likely that most Americans can't afford to go on vacations when they are worrying about their job, bills and all that.
Considering that health care is tied to the job through insurance, you really don't want to lose your job in the US, and that pressure pushes lower standards on Americans out of fear of losing their job and health care benefits.
It's a bit of a scam why the job and health care are tied together, but it's easy to see why it's done like that, to give more powers to businesses over the workers and the only reason these things don't happen in other modern countries is because the law doesn't allow it, the US as many know, is the odd countries in so many areas in how it treats it's people, and not in a good way.
Thank you to all the workers, trade unions and political parties that fought hard in the past to get these rights for every citizen
The problem for the US. are the consequences after Joseph McCarthy!
And thanks to the great Otto von Bismarck who hated the socialists so much that created social security laws to take their political agenda away (highly simplified)
Not in the US!
@@kratzikatz1nope, just in the civilised world 👍
@@kratzikatz1 why do you think the US banned unions!
As a German, the american working culture is so annoying. They are all about working TIME, not productivity. Our American factory workers are annoyingly proud of the 60+ hours they work each week while not getting shit done. They are far less productive than our german, french, polish or Italian workers who work "just" 35 hours.
must be a union shop or gov't. job. Nowhere in the non-union private sector do Americans enjoy a paycheck while producing nothing.
As a British person I love hearing Germans talk to Americans in meetings. Germans just want to discuss what is needed and get back to work, Americans want to have small talk for 15 mins for no reason, use far too many words to explain what they needed then have another bit of small talk at the end. Germans hate this shit, it's not like they don't like small talk they do but not when you are supposed to be working.
@@jollyrodgers7272 No one said producing nothing, what was said was far less productive as in getting less done in the alloted time and resources
its the same with our american factory, the need 3 to 4 days to get their goods from the incoming goods department into the factory. we did the same in 3 to 4 hours
@@jamesdewitt84 To be fair I use my American coworkers to get better at Smalltalk. But you're right, it's a culture clash oftentimes.
And to be clear, I like most Americans I've met. I just hate this talking about how hard they are working when they are basically wasting time.
When I lived in Europe I had 25 days of vacation (guaranteed by the government, not negotiable by the employer) plus 16 recognized paid national holidays. That's 41 days off in total (basically 2 months out of a year you don't work and still get paid plus you have full health insurance). Here in California the HR boss told me I have 10 days vacation plus 6 recognized paid holidays, that's 16 days per year total. What a joke! And she was telling me this like it was the best thing! When I asked what about the sick days? She said it's already included in those 10 days of vacation LOL! (In Europe, there's no sick days, because one just stays at home until he gets better, so sick days are unlimited). Then she asked me: where, as an employee, you see yourself in 2 or 5 years? I was thinking to myself: "back in Prague, young lady!" 😝
After reading the last line of your comment i laughed my ass off😂😂🤣
😂😂😂😂😂😂👍🏻
In many countries you also get "vacation money", which is a half or even a whole month (13th month) salary. So, not only do you get more vacation you also are paid more to take the vacation (or to come back to work from a vacation😀In Finland it used to be called "return to work from the vacation money")
@@jounikemppi here we were use to get 13th salary and these days (large companies negotiated with unions) it is divided as so called 13th and 14th salary (but AFAIK is not mandatory - it is benefit - result of unions negotiations)
To me, this is modern days slavery. How can people live that way?
No one tell Ryan…… but if you are SICK when on holiday, you can claim your holiday back 😂. Not many of us do, but if you have a long illness, we may do.
Sssh, he might find out that socialism isn't a bad word.
I always do, and everybody should. Sick days are not relaxing, they are meant to get you to full health again.
Happened to me during this Christmas holiday. Didn’t even have to claim them back. There was an email in my inbox upon my return from an HR person saying “I saw in our system that you reported in sick, so I returned the vacation days for you”. That was for two days. 😍
@@24magiccarrotyes, an illness interrupts the holiday. So you have to report it and claim additional days for the holiday. Austrian federal law.
@@mick-berry5331 No need to claim. Just send the doctors note. I had to do that after Christmas. On the other hand I have 5 more days for summer vacation.
Most people in Germany don't feel bad about going on vacation and leave their coworkers. Why should they? It's their right to go on vacation and everybody goes on vacation. It's totally normal.
And if the person going on vacation is a problem, it's really bad planning by the employer. What if the person got hit by a bus and was suddenly gone?
@@realulli I've worked countless temp' assignments, replacing employeees on holiday or on maternity or sick leave. No problem!
@@micade2518 exactly. If an employee going on vacation is a problem for a company, the company didn't do its homework. It could even be called a fire drill - "what happens if employee X is suddenly gone?". Unlike something actually catastrophic, the employee comes back and they get a chance to correct the failings/failures.
Everyone has to represent his colleagues at vacation time, so why bad feelings? And also the whole economy is slowing down at main vacation times.
@@muschelpuster1987 And in some industries you just don't get vacation time during the main season (or during school holidays)
If your coworkers have to work a bit more while you are on holidays, why feel bad? You will do the same for them when it's their turn. 😊
and usually on holiday season, things are a bit slower, so it isn't that much extra duty - this is because all companies have ppl on vacation.
And your company can hire vacation workers
That’s how the system works and why it works so well: in most companies, there are a set number of days when everyone is on vacation. In my company, it’s between Christmas and New Year. Everyone clocks out on December 24th and no one returns until January 2nd. This is pretty normal for Europe, which automatically means our customers don’t work then either. A very small skeleton staff is on call, basically getting paid an astronomical amount of money to pan the phones, monitor the general inbox of emails and… scroll on their own mobile. This is just in case of emergencies. The rest of the year everyone pretty much requests and gets their vacation time whenever they want. In very rare cases, you need to adjust a little bit. For example: this year I wanted to take January 2nd off, but as all other German-speaking colleagues had already gotten their vacation for that day approved I didn’t get that day. I didn’t mind, knowing it was going to be an extremely slow day… and I got to take the rest of that week off. It amounted to being present fir py colleagues and handling anything of theirs should it come up that day.
Similarly, when one of us goes on vacation, there is always a hand-over to a colleague. Your back- up takes over for you when you’re gone whether it’s on vacation or for medical reasons. If that backup isn’t available, there is a 2nd backup and failing that, there is the manager. General cases and duties are handled by the team as a whole. As everyone works according to that system, no one minds. For example, if I see several general tasks on the list that normally would get handled by my colleagues for say France, the Nordics, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Italy or the UK, but those colleagues are absent, I will check with their assigned back-up how they’re coping and will take some over. I know they’ll do the same for me as well. We recently checked ut of curiosity and in the long run everyone ends up handling roughly the same amount of work. If someone would consistently avoid pulling their weight, they’d ostracise themselves very, very fast. HR has also been smart enough to make sure the reports take sick days into account in such a way that these don’t reflect negatively in our stats. There’s also a strict ‘no poaching’ rule: you NEVER take work away from a colleague without permission from that colleague (or their backup) if he or she is available. They are free to pass it on but if you want to take on something that isn’t yours, you ask. It’s a respect thing.
Everyone is expected to take up all of their vacation days within the year. All of it. If due to circumstances you can’t there is a maximum of 2 days transferable to the first week of January. No more. And everyone sticks to that. From high management to the cleaning lady.
I 've just retired but just before retirement I had 30 paid vacation day plus 5 so called senior days and paid holidays.
In 2022 I visited USA three times for a total of almost 2 months.
Yes I work for 3 weeks this June and my boss covers my routine tasks. My boss takes 6 weeks in the summer and I do his routine tasks. It's grand. I don't feel bad and he doesn't feel bad.
As for Japan: Per work hour. It's incredibly common to spend the night at the office desk. Workers sleeping at work a sign of "worked so hard, fell asleep". All "work hours". And all of this charade, because that's what it is, does NOT result in actual productivity. Shocker!
and still the economy of japan is bankrupting...
It’s a political thing. If labour laws mandated that employees have to get paid for any time spent at work the employers would make damn sure workers get their ass home to sleep in a proper bed instead of at the desk. Capitalism actually fixes that shit if there is an monetary incentive for the employer. First step is a law that mandates employers have to track employee overtime, otherwise it becomes a culture of employees "donating" overtime to their workplace to carry favour or "because everyone does it" which has health detriments for the employee and no monetary disincentive for the employer.
The law also needs to be kinda heavy-handed. Company would be liable for exhaustion related illnesses *if* they don’t follow labour laws. The labour laws would be based on … oh I don’t know, maybe human biology?
While your comment, referring to the last chart shown, is wrong, it is correct in it's underlying meaning.
They are indeed much less productive per hour because (and a lot of other reasons) of the long hours that they make.
But the chart gives a really warped sense of scale. It seems the 0-point is not 0. It's supposed to be 100 with an addition each year due to inflation compensation. And each year earlier is less then 100.
Check this one out, Japan is suddenly at 104. data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm
Or wikipedia, where 2015 is set to 100: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity#Historical_development
And their workers suicidal rate is way higher than any country on earth 🥲
I do not know, but some countries cannot let their workers work overtime much. If company needs overtimes from a worker over set limit, it is mandatory for company to set up another position and hire another worker (i think A, D )
51 years old German here. I (as most people here) have 30 paid vacation days off + public holidays (depending on the year, probably 7 or so avg?) + as many paid sick days as I am sick. This year I got Covid and was off (paid) for 4 more weeks. If we get sick during vacation, we get the vacation days back. My (really cheap) insurance also adds "Kranken-Tagegeld" (sick day money) and "Krankenhaus-Tagegeld" (hospital-day-money), that is, in addition to paying my medical and hospital bills, after some days I also get some money from my insurance to cover inconveniences while being sick. Of course, while I get my normal income...
10 Feiertage haben alle Bundesländer, manche, 11, 12 und in manchen Gegenden sogar 14 Tage.
@@patrickseidel218 Aber nicht alle davon fallen auf Werktage, 7 dürfte eine gute Schätzung sein für den Durchschnitt an Feiertagen die auf Arbeitstage fallen pro Jahr.
50+ German here, 65 days vacation this year, been sick home for 14 months untill last October....
still employed in the same company since 37 years...and not broke from Med bills!
€27 per 3 months is cheap, for my meds!
for the americans: the fee per day in hospital is 10€/day. and if u are in hospital longer than 29days (combined within a year) u dont have to pay anymore. so its basically max 290€. if ur sick for longer than 6 weeks for the same illness within a year ur employer doesnt pay ur salary anymore and ur healthinsurancecompany pays u around 70% of ur normal income. u can insure urself for these costs for around 30/yr (for only hospitalfee) up to mostly 200-300€/yr for both and some other extras, like (single bed room, chiefdoctor treatment and so on...). but one health related thing that is costly even in germany is teeth. a checkup and the minimal treatment is free. but who wants a cement fronttooth when one breaks? so u have to pay up for a lot of things at the dentist and/or orthodontist.
And not forgetting the Überstunden that can add a fair few extra days to one’s holiday entitlement..
Not only the companies have to guarantee paid vacations, but taking vacations is mandatory. You are obliged to take vacations.
The companies can get into big trouble if you don’t, so they are not interested in you not taking your vacation time.
@@irenezaleski4989 Makes sense with the past month where I work. Been getting everyone to use up their holiday hours before it resets on the 1st of march. I only had 9hrs left so took a random half day and finish few hours early on another.
And if you dont get the vacation in 1 year and get it not in next year till 1 . MARCH. THE VACATION IT GONE WITHOUT get money. Is gone if you dont said when you want to get it. Your company ask you in the beginning of the year when you want to get the vacation days. If too much co workers want the same time you have to talk . In your team . At the end the company have the last word. So every time a year enough workers in work. And if you not tell your vacation days they remember you. . In the following year only till 1. March time to get the old vacation days. If not till then you lost them without getting money for them
Then they are gone. But then you have a diskussion with your company leader.
@@rh-yf6cg yep I'd have lost those hours if I'd not took them and not take them into the next set like we used to. Think a lot of companies here do that now.
Paid vacations.... yea but where does that money come from? The gov? The company? NO! FROM YOUR OWN PAYCHECK THE 11 OTHER MONTHS OF THE YEAR!
Atleast in sweden.. doubt very much its different in other eu places.... if you are employed u have like 6% or something subtracted from your pay to be used as pay for your vacation. So if u quit a job right b4 vacation u get that money paid out to you.
Same if ur a teenager and just work a summer job... those vacation pot money is still subtracted and u get it when u quit. Atleadt that's how I remember it.. its 30+yrs ago.
..
As a German, I would not sign an employment contract in which I was only guaranteed 20 vacation days per year. These 20 days are only what is required by law, but I have never worked for a company that offered less than 28 days per year. You only get 20 days here in low-paid jobs at most.
Correct, 30 days paid vacation is pretty much standard in Germany. Then you have 10-13 holidays depending on the state, if you're lucky, you live in Augsburg for an extra paid holiday for a total of 44 paid free days.
I've got a Masters degree and only 20 days. But well, I wouldn't call my job work. It's more like doing what I'd do anyways, but get paid well for it. So I'm having next month off, because I forgot to take my vacation days last year... again...
I currently have vacation because I had 12 days left from last years 30 days. Christmas time was busier than expected so I didn’t want to use them between the holidays. In 2020 working in a medical field I was temporarily prohibited from taking vacation and when I switched jobs they had to pay out my full 30 days. Tax on that was nasty though.
Offering much less than 30 days pretty much is a sign that you are fishing for the really desperate ones. Esp. with larger companies.
I really enjoy my 30 vacation days and it is normal to take two weeks for summer holidays. Also three weeks is ok and the best opportunity to travel. We have to use all the vacation days, it is really rare to get paid for not using the days off.
Freedom. Definition in American dictionary : ability to devote one's life to the production of wealth for the enrichment of a company.
freedom lost its meaning in US..all stayed in the past..now americans are too lazy,and sorry-sometimes so dumb...its no more American dream..
FREEEDOM AND DEMOCRACY YEAHHH
- The Sound of brainwashed Americans who think its normal to be sweating their ass off to make a billionaire that much richer, and anything that could impede on that is 100% full on socialist dictatorship communist policed state.
Freedom to work 24/7
American freedom is the freedom to do things, in this case be horrible to your employees. European freedom is the freedom from having things done to you, in this case being abused by your employer. This concept of freedom from and freedom to goes through most other aspects of society, freedom to shoot people versus freedom to be shot, freedom to track your customers versus freedom from being tracked, freedom to put whatever you want in the food you produce versus freedom from eating food with additives that are bad for the consumer et certera. One has freedom from oppression the other has freedom of oppression.
Very good analysis.@@danvernier198
Something else you'll never see (at least, not in the UK) is managers expecting employees who are calling in sick to find cover for themselves... it's almost as if it's the MANAGER'S job to manage!
100%. As an ex manager. That was my headache to deal with.
The question of "who can afford more than one week of vacation?" is a depressing one.
For a start, a vacation doesn't have to be a big expensive affair. You don't have to fly off to Europe or Mexico or California. You can vacation nearer home. You can go and stay with family or friends (or have them come to stay with you). You can go camping or staying in cheaper hostels. You could just stay at home and take day trips (the so-called "staycation").
It's all about finding time and space to relax, switching off from work, not packing your kids off to summer camp for a month but actually spending time with them. If you want to sit around playing computer games for a week, go for it. If you want to build a patio and repaint the house, now's your chance. You can take a week at a time, or odd days here and there. But having the opportunity to travel is really, really valuable.
For much of America, if you drive all day to the next state the wheat fields you see are just like the ones you left. Take a jet.
I'm fascinated by how many Americans think it's one consecutive month off. No. You get 20/25/30 working days off per year. You can take a week at a time, you can take 2 weeks at a time, you can take one day a week for 30 weeks straight. You may use it however you want.
careful Americans might mistranslate that as 20 days / 25 months and 30 years!
@@sopcannon
That depends. In professions like teaching or emergency services your leave is allocated to you. For example schooo teachers must take the leave entitlement at the time the schools are off.
@@lanabmc3519that's why teachers have 2 months paid vacation. They also work during some holidays, not teaching of course.
@@Vinz3ntR it’s a lot longer than two months here. Six weeks summer, one week October, two over Christmas, one over Easter and a few random public holidays here and there. It’s not just teachers. My husband is in emergency services and his leave is allocated also.
I'm a Brit. I worked in California for a few years. The best thing that came out of the US is my wife. There is nothing that would tempt me to work there again. Even when your day should end people don't want to leave because they think that they will be regarded as doing less than others. I was made to feel guilty if I took vacation time. Here, back in the UK, my employer makes me take all of my 25 days plus vacation days and they are not impressed if I stay late, except on special circumstances, or don't take my breaks for lunch. Productivity increases when people don't get over fatigued or enjoy their job. People in the UK and EU go to work to live they don't live to work
Here staying always late at work means either that your boss is incompetent and you have too much work delegated to you or you are incompetent and can't do your job.
If I would do overtime security would call why the alarm hasn't been set yet.
In the UK and EU it is illegal to work for over 6 hours without a break. That is why they push you to take your break.
Avert your sensative,free American eyes from all our disgusting socalist oppression Ryan! 😬✊️🤣👍
But, but freedom
Freedom and democracy!!!!!
😂😂😂😂
Well duh, everyone knows 'Murica is the greatest country in the world!
Except for the fact that in Europe, we have free (or at least affordable) healthcare and education, higher wages, more vacation time, better infrastructure, healthier food, and a higher life expectancy (also caused by a lower chance to get murdered by gangs or police). But hey, just minor details, right?
@@paulbeneder9337 A Democracy with two Partys is just one party away from Dictatorship! :)
@@OnkelTotto
Is it proven that there are 2 parties? Or is it just one nationalist party that has two wings - one is more conservative and the other is more far right…?
🤔🤔😁😁
What to do on vacation if you’re on a tight budget:
Go to the park, visit nearby cities, spend time with family/friends, relax, catch up with your sleep, read, do what ever you want, do NOTHING (really important)…
I could add :
work on your house / apartment, work on your own projects, explore stuff / learn new things
I would add: do some sport, small tours, hikes around lakes, forest. It really doesnt have to be expensive.
In european parks (if there is good weather) u can See people doing sport, eating, reading, enjoying sun, just laying on the grass. Some european cities have also free or cheap tickets for museum on some days. They are a lot of posibilieties.
Yeah. Nothing beats a long three day weekend, where you barely manage to crawl from the bed to the sofa and back. It can do wonders for your happiness.
@@tehweh8202 In Italy we call it "cazzeggio" (pronounce Kaz-zed-jo from the verb cazzeggiare, to piss around)
As an European to other European people:
Let's protect our labour rights that many people before us fought for and let's not take them for granted, or we'll lose them. I don't want to end up like the yankees, living to work.
Getting sick leave is a right.
Getting paid vacations is a right.
The 8 working hours a day is a right gained by hard struggles (remember the Chicago martyrs, for instance)
Striking is also a right.
Workers, unite and win the fight!
Workers, unite and win the fight? This looks as you are planning to set up cooperative. Not bad idea, but the whole point of negotiation between unions and employers is to achieve deuce.
we want 6 hour work days or 4 day work weeks! or why not both
@@Maysti87 With AI and robots we will surely get there one day.
@@JensPilemandOttesen Yeah, sure, I work with robots right now, and... it's often very annoying, they are so stupid. I know that's not their fault, but moving around the werehouse with them getting in the way all the time can be really irritating. I don't doubt that with time they will get better, but for now... Give me a break.
Vacations days are not optional, they are mandatory here in Italy. It’s in the constitution
Same in Ukraine, 24 calendar days minimum
Our constitution says nothing about vacation days, but we have quite good (although a bit complicated) labour law. 20-26 work days of holiday. Poland here.
I worked and lived in the United States for 13 years and THIS was one of the reasons i moved home. You work for a small company in the U.S you CAN take some time off.....but its unpaid and if you want to take more than a week per year your employer would normally try and deswade you or guilt trip you into not taking more than a week, That and the average work week is 45 to 50 hours per week, ZERO right for employees, so glad i am no longer there. ( I am Scottish and have been back home for a year )
I worked for a US for 30 years and I lived in the US for 3.5 years in the late 1990. My luck was that I was there on a „loan“ from my German home location. So I was there with my German labor contract. The deal was that I had my 6 weeks German vacation but had to obey the US bank holidays. But I also must say, the project u was in was intense and stressfull. The leadership actually urged us to take all our vacations and don‘t cut it short.
Swede here. I have 35 days of paid vacation a year. That’s not including “red days”, holidays like Easter, Christmas, midsummer and so on, which of course are vacation days by default.
About the workload being heavier for the ones whom are still at work while you’re on vacation. Yeah, they’ll get a little heavier load for a couple of weeks, but then you’ll get a heavier load when you get back and they go on vacation. Solidarity baby, works like a charm.
Don't forget those wonderful "squeeze days" that a lot of us enjoy 😅
@@khman4554 just love ‘em.
and if you work on those days you usually get them as extra vacation later in the year @@khman4554
It's because teams in America work on skeleton crews. Many doing the work of 2 or 3 ppl. So 1 person leaving really makes an impact and overloads the system in terms of workload.
@@grazynawolska8160 yeah, well…time to sharpen that broad-ax, then.
About 20 years ago I worked in a company in Finland that had a clause in the job agreement that if I have to answer the phone after working hours, I get 1 day worth of pay. Doesn't matter if the phone call takes 2 minutes or 1 hour, but if it takes more than 1 hour then you are also entitled to overtime pay on an hourly basis on top of that. The purpose of this was obviously to stop calling people after working hours and it worked.
The more I learn about life in Finland the more I want to move there...
I think France made it illegal to contact employees for work after work hours - which makes a lot of sense to me.
Back when I was working in the automotive industry, my team lead would habitually call me back into the office after work hours because I was the only design engineer who could do a certain task for our client at the time, Mercedes. So I'd end up putting in 10-12-hour days at least 3 times per month.
Becoming a freelance marketer back in 2018 and leaving the UK was the best choice I ever made.
@@razorwireclouds5708i once tested my work laptop at home on te weekend and thought i answer an email. My chef told my to not do this ever again 😅
Hello from Finland! 🇫🇮 Now retired. After 44 years working I really find it so fantastic I did have about 6 weeks in a year holiday days. 4 weeks in summer, 2 weeks in winter. On a holiday you don't have to do anything but relax and enjoy normal life.
I am from Germany auf have 30 days off...plus the national holidays. 20 days is only the minimum per law. Most Germans get more days off..
I would not take a full time job with less than 30 days unless I am literally starving to death.
so true ! 30 days today is a standard in Germany. But this only holidays. As I heard in the US you may have 2 weeks paid days off, but this include also days you are sick ? In Germany we have another 6 weeks fully paid if you are sick, followed by another max. 72 weeks paid by the insurance ( about 60-70% of your last income net per month)
Yeah, same. 34 for me in The Netherlands on 1 FTE. I only work 32 hours, so I get 80% of that, but also only need 4 max to take a week off and that's if I don't plan it with national days off.
Yeah 30days + holidays is the average here too and that does come down to 6 weeks considering you were already off on weekends. Never used it in a row personally but its nice to have 2 weeks off now and then for some traveling around europe.
Yes. I don't know how the US families manage school holidays with younger kids, that just can't hang around home alone. On the other hand, half of Reddit and most of Insta and FB men (on Posts about family issues) always (literally ALWAYS) immediately come up with "bUt i wOrk anD shE hAs dO dO hEr fAiR sHaRe aT hOmE tHeN, nOt mE agAiN!!!!", so I guess, people assume that mothers generally stay at home (although I believe that's just some redpiller-lie, not reality) and that kind of nonexisting worker's rights probably enforce that forever.
It's part of your employers job to make sure they have enough people to cover for vacation, sick leave and so on. So why feel bad. Plus the collegues take vacation as well, you cover for each other, so it's still fair.
Sometimes that is tough if you are talking about a senior specialist. Sometimes a specialist is doing the work of three or four people, and coverage is just not economically viable.
@@dale116dot7 how? I know that this is not a case of every European country, but some countries, by law, avoiding unlimited overtimes and if threshold is crossed, company must hire another worker (create a new position). I do not live in such country, but If I am working for three, I ask for three salaries and nonstandard overtimes like double at least (standard 25% more and 35%more if it is risky job). (last time I was asked for unusual job while at home and asked double even it was only a few hrs homeoffice one evening and a few for corrections another evening)
Through the whole Europe employer needs you, you do not need him (case when you are experienced worker, it is hard to exchange even sweeper nowadays when plenty of UA people are available)
To clarify the August thing in France. Most people tend to take their holidays in August, particularly civil servants. However, those people usually take only two weeks of vacation not the whole month. But for about two weeks in August, there are so few people around that it makes more sense for companies and administrations to close than to try running. Restaurants, bakeries, etc may close but not at the same time. Hotels and supermarkets are open. In tourist areas, supermarkets are even open on Sundays.
In Poland on full time job you have 26 days of paid vacation.
it is also the time when student replace workers as their summer jobs. I used to work in a bank during my student's vacations.
2 weeks is minimum. A lot of us take 3 weeks.
Bakeries for sure communicate with each other to go on holiday in a rotation
I lived in America through the work and travel program. I spent three summer seasons there as a student. It's a country of extremes. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty, extreme entertainment and extreme boredom. After completing my master's studies, I had an offer to work as a civil engineer in the USA, but I declined and opted for Germany. Now I live and work in Norway. The work-life balance I have here in Norway is something I couldn't achieve in any other country. 30 days of paid leave (6 weeks), plus 2 weeks of collective leave (one for Christmas and New Year, the other for Easter). And it's all paid. If I get sick and can't go to work, it's all paid. It's incredible how little stress there is in this country. Getting fired or not receiving a raise is almost unheard of for people with permanent jobs.
You can have the same in France, but i agree, it's rare to find these working conditions in other countries
I couldn't imagine working in the US with the ever-present possibility that you can just get fired on the spot with no recourse; with no paid vacation; no paid sick leave; no paid parental leave; etc.
@@razorwireclouds5708 in fact, their salaries are much higher than ours, and tjey have to pay their own medical care, spare money if they lose their job, and so on. They just have to behave like responsive adults and manage their money instead of having high taxes and let the goverment do it .
@@Jsmithsurv Their salaries are higher but not MUCH higher. And so what? They pay 2x more per year for healthcare than the average EU citizen and they get worse health outcomes. The life expectancy in the US is shit.
Also, don't be silly - Americans aren't responsible adults. They've got more debt. They're also wasteful, overweight and sedentary. Their cities are atrocious and car-centric. Their infrastructure is a century behind any modern EU country's. Their violent crime rates are through the roof.
The reason we have the best infrastructure, services and health & safety standards in the world IS government.
@@Jsmithsurv At the end of the day, there isn't much financial difference for that amount of stress. That's why I'm working in Norway now. I could have an annual pre-tax salary of $110,000 in the USA, and I have $75,000 in Norway, with taxes around 28-30% when everything is added up at the end of the year and tax refunds come in. Tax is reduced for individuals with children, those with mortgages, car loans, etc.
But I don't worry about health insurance; all my sick days are paid, even if I'm on sick leave for a year or two or three. If I were to lose my job, the state would pay me the average salary I've earned in the last 12 months for 2 years.
I have 6 weeks of paid vacation, plus 2 weeks of collective vacation, totaling 8 weeks. + public holidays. And nobody minds if I take a day off on a Friday or Monday to have an extended weekend and travel somewhere. The important thing is that the work is completed on time. If I don't feel like going to the office, nobody holds it against me for working from home. Nobody watches the clock when I arrive at the office and when I leave.
It's a completely relaxed atmosphere, and all projects are completed on time. Happy company, happy customers, and I'm happy too because I can organize my time as it suits me.
When I have children, I'm entitled to an additional 12 days of paid leave per child for "child's illness." If I have a doctor's note and the child is seriously ill, I can take as much time off as necessary until the child recovers. And it's paid.
Leaving work to drop off or pick up a child from daycare/school is also paid, and nobody has an issue with it.
Currently, I commute about 50km to work, about 35 minutes by train. This is calculated at the end of the year, and I receive a portion of the money back from the tax office.
There are many benefits. I know people who have 2-3 children, a mortgage, car loans, but their tax rate is 20% when everything is taken into account. Singles pay the highest tax. So those lies about people in Norway paying 40-50% taxes, lies that are sold to Americans, that's not true.
Americans, when they pay everything we pay through taxes, have the same or less money.
Hello from France Ryan! Depends if you live in rural zone or in cities, but normally even in the summer, you should be able to buy your baguette and croisants and other groceries. Fun fact: because French revolution happened on a bread crisis, in Paris, bakeries owners must take their summer vacation in July or August and then work the other month so bread is always an available comodity
Imagine aspiring to be a French bread maker. Cave men made baguettes.
To clarify French vacations, we usually have 5 week for the entire year but we are rarely allowed (and rarely want) to take 5 consecutive weeks of vacations, even 4 is pretty rare.
We usually use from 2 to 4 weeks during summer and keep the rest for one or two small pauses.
Not everything is closed during august, It's only companies where all the employees are in vacation at the same time (small and family companies or the ones where summer is too hot to work).
For the others that are open you have to know that not everyone take their summer vacations at the same time, it's mostly during August, then July and finally June and September. The companies generally have less clients and still compensate by making their students work full time during this period.
In companies that don't have fixed vacations: we are not the ones asking for vacations, our boss is the one asking us when we want (of course we can't get what we want if everybody ask for the same week). They have to pay us every day not taken and they don't want to do it.
Our idea of working to live and not living to work is also what make us more effective, basically: we work only at work so when we work we are 100% working (okay maybe not 100% and not everyone but you get it).
To add something to your comment is that in France your can, by Law, use at least 4 weeks of vacation, and 2 of those 4 weeks have to be consecutive. The date to use those 4 weeks are between may and end of october.
@@kitsune2077 "The date to use those 4 weeks are between may and end of october"
uh... what ? I'm french, and I've never seen that.
I've always taken 2 weeks in December / January, 2 weeks in July / August, then the rest doted around in the year.
PS : just looked at it. you are required to be allowed a consecutive 2 week vacation period between may and october. not 4.
@@seedz5132 alors je le refais en français 😁
Légalement : Tu PEUX poser jusqu'à 4 semaines consécutives (plus est interdit) entre le mois de mai et octobre.
Il est obligatoire de poser 2 semaines consécutives sur cette période. Donc si tu poses 4 semaines de vacances, tu as 2 semaines des 4 qui sont obligatoires et doivent être consécutives. 😉
Et dans le code du travail tu DOIS poser 4 semaines entre le 1er mai et le 31 octobre. Si tu ne le fais pas cela rajoute les jours de fractionnement.
En gros si tu ne poses pas 4 semaines (4 sem. consécutives ou 2 semaines consécutives obligatoires+2 semaines éparpillées) entre le 1er mai et le 31 octobre parceque ton employeur t'en empêche, alors il te dois des jours de congés supplémentaires appelé jour de fractionnement. Si tu ne poses pas ces 4 semaines de ta propre décision, ton employeur dois te faire signer un papier de renonciation aux jours de fractionnement. (Nb cette partie dépend de l'accord d'entreprise)
payfit.com/fr/fiches-pratiques/conges-fractionnement/#:~:text=Les%20jours%20de%20fractionnement%20selon,31%20octobre%20de%20chaque%20ann%C3%A9e.
@@kitsune2077Never saw that in France. It must be a special convention in your working sector.
The law is 2,5 vacation days / month. Point.
Bonne explication
UK holiday request process - Staff “Can I take some time off?”, Manager “sure, check the system and put it in”. I had 8 direct reports, the only rule was ONE of us was in the office at all times, apart from public holidays.
I am from Czech Republic and we have simmilar system, i believe its in most of european countries. Usualy the boss is bothering you in March, why you still haven´t planned your summer holiday. 😆
I'm in Ireland, we have a leave reservation system in my company, it shows us available days, and if you want it you book it and get immediate confirmation. I don't ask anyone to use my leave, nobody gets to decide if I can take leave, I just book the days I want from the available days.
This is most UK companies but usually there is a notification period, usually 2 weeks in advance where you need to request at least 2 weeks in advance. So long as there are enough people on, you can take vacation whenever. I feel the law is part of this since while the company is required to give you vacations throughout the year, it is not required to give specific days, a company that makes it essentially impossible for an employee to get their legally mandated 28 days can find itself in very big legal trouble, so no company pushes it, worker's rights is an amazing thing, perhaps the US should try them out at a federal level.
Actually, will go further, since there are laws that most companies have to abide by, it is not unknown for people to get into trouble for taking no vacation at all, or for managers to point out when you're leaving too many days towards the last quarter of the year.
I just told my boss I'm going to Australia for 6 weeks in March 25 to go to a relatives wedding, not a problem. Most larger firms employ enough staff to cope with staff taking holidays as long as it's planned in advance. It should be the businesses problem to plan ahead.
I just tell my boss I'm not coming in on monday. For longer holidays i discuss with my co workers who is doing my work while I'm away.
Apart from summer/winter holiday season when everybody wants to be away at the same time (and boss is sometimes needed to decide who have to be in the office) I'd be quite upset if my boss dares to interfere with my holiday plans.
In Ireland I MUST take my annual leave in the year, I can't transfer any holiday days to next year and I won't be paid out the balance if I don't take. Full time workers have guaranteed 20 days paid annual leave and part time is calculated 8% of worked hours. On top of that we have 10 days of bank holidays which are also 100% paid.
In Poland you can move your vacation to next year - but you need use them till end of August (earlier was end of March).
We have 20 - 26 paid vacation days (20 as you start working, 26 after few years )
@@Rubeus1000in Lithuania its up to company.its their policy to let move vacation days to next year or not. But by law , after 3 years you lose yiur vacations...so you can accumulate 60 days of vacations, but not more
In Germany you have till the end of March to take the remaining vacation days from the year ago. I still have 10 days to waste, need to make up my mind where I wanna go. :) And then there's 25 more for 2024 (legal minimum, and I HAVE to take them). Fully paid, obvsly. We have to pay rent and food, vacation or not, after all!
I'm in Ireland also. I get 28 days paid leave plus public holidays and I can carry five days over to the next year. I can also buy leave if I really want to. I usually go over to mainland Europe and the UK two or three times a year.
@@recordingroadtrips Did you hear about Geocaching? This is great outdoor game that perfectly consume any amount of free days 😀
I’m here on the other side of the world. You may have seen this online but full time Aussie workers get four weeks paid leave, plus sick leave, maternity leave, bereavement leave, and public holidays. Public holidays add an extra 13 days off a year. For example, unless you work in retail or hospitality, pretty much the entire country shuts down between Christmas Eve and New Years Day. But you get those as public holidays and so you don’t have to use paid leave for Christmas or NYD. Part-timers aren’t left out, either. They get the same leave, prorated to the hours they work. Casuals get paid more as they don’t get it but recently the government here brought in five days sick leave that they pay for casuals. We also introduced the ‘right to unplug’ rules to stop being contacted outside of your regular hours.
i am kinda more upset, that americans know this, and dont fight for this, but fight for a lot of bullshit.
one man cannot win a war. How you can take more men to the fight while everybody believes that joining is communism (until it is not joint venture, that is OK, its capitalism)
Some countries don't emulate Greece, apparently that's what you long for instead of a big American house and a million dollars for your retirement. In America we don't know what "austerity" means, but Europe does.
The reason why Japans stats are so low on that graph is because it's fairly common that you only leave work when your boss does, which means that a lot of people spend their time at work not really working. At least that's what I've heard from a lot of expats.
Yeah, and it's ok to sleep at work etc. but generally it's changing towards eu model.
damn the chain reaction when the ceo is leaving
Partly true, but those hours are not counted in in these statistics since they are illegal unpaid hours done "voluntarily". There are a lot more reasons why Japan's numbers in efficiency are low, main one is related to karoshi
I wonder if the data is affected by the year 2021 which was an abnormal year as different countries in different parts of the world were coming out of covid lockdowns in different ways. Some countries were still stuck with strict restrictions, with some sectors not actually open or working properly or only slowly returning to work, Japan may have been still stuck with the tightest restrictions alongside China.
Yeah i visited japan talked a lot with locals and that was what ive heard from few office workers. Alltho they were drunk on their lunch breaks as its socially acceptable there so im not sure how much efficient work they were going to get done when they go back to office.
vacationdays is not just about travel, is also for example about able to fully relax for a few days/ spend a weekend orso with family/ able to finally able to finish that room you are trrying to renovate in your home/spend time actually enjoying your envirment or that forest you live near to
If you go on leave, sure your co-workers might have more work to do because they have to cover for you, but also, you cover for them when they go on leave. You're all in it together, Ryan. Something that seems to be lost on a lot of Americans.
Thats why you have summer workers to orevent this
Because that is considered 'communism' in the US 😂😂
Here in Poland you get 20 days if you don’t have a higher education degree and 26 if you do, or have already worked for over 10 years overall. I don’t ask for vacation, I tell when I’m going on vacation. The law says that any worker with a contract of employment is required to take at least 2 weeks of uninterrupted vacation to rest. You literally have to. It is customary to tell your employer at the beginning of the year when are you planning to take those two weeks, just so they can plan for it. The rest of the 16 days that are left you take whenever, no questions asked. 4 of those days can be taken with zero notice or explanation. It’s called “on demand”. But usually you put in the form 1-2 days prior to be fair to the company so that they can prepare for you not being there. Employee protection laws here say that unless the company can prove that it will literally stop functioning without you, they can’t stop you from taking your vacation. Vacation is not a privilege, it’s a right.
And that's on top of around 13 days of different religious and national holidays during the year.
So I guess that makes 39 days in total :)
+ add paid sick leave and paid maternity/paternity leave to that
@@julianpierwotniak7690 these 20 or 26 do not depend on education, but on how long you work in total. (in all places from your first job where you have a 1/2 time or more contract). Education helps because the time spent studying is included in this period, so after master you need only 5 years, and if you study and work in the same time you get 26 days after masters.
these 20 or 26 do not depend on education, but on how long you work in total. (in all places from your first job where you have a 1/2 time or more contract). Education helps because the time spent studying is included in this period, so after master you need only 5 years, and if you study and work in the same time you get 26 days after masters.
@@julianpierwotniak7690 I don´t know how it works in Poland, but here in Slovakia we have parental leave up to 3 years for women, 6 months for men. we usually share 30 months for women, and 6 months for men.
Well you Poles messed up, you should have voted for 20 weeks of time to rest. Someday you company will demand 20 weeks where they don't have to pay the slackers.
Italy here. The point is that "vacation" here does not only mean traveling here and there but ALSO resting in your own city, seeing beautiful things, friends, relatives. Or simply reading a couple of good books.
For Brits, "vacation time" is any time you don't have to be at work...!
I am German, but same. Just because I take some time off doesn`t mean I have to go somewhere. I am just as happy to just stay home and relax.
Indeed. I love my vacations between 8pm and 8am.
For some vacation time is even AT work. As civil servants say : I asked for a job, not for work.
@@flitsertheo it reminds me "are you going to work today? What? Work? .. OK, OK .. occupation? Hh? ... OK, are you going to job today? Yes, I am."
I feel that there is also a big difference in how we look at the holiday itself. I, for example, have used all my holiday so far by staying at home and just relaxing. I don't need to go anywhere and if I did I would take the train to the countryside and walk around, see some hystorical towns and stuff like that. It's not a very expensive affair and yes I don't have a family to take care of, but even if I did I'd imagine a holiday in a similar way. So I can imagine a week of that traditional vacation that I save up for money and the rest is just extra time to just relax/refresh.
In the 1980s I started work at a Swedish owned factory here in England. I worked as a welder. The company paid all the fees and paid time off. for me to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree. Then paid and provided time off for me to continue my studies at York Uni. They made me UK Production Manager. No successful company should ever be allowed to develop two sides Management v Workers. All need to be on the same side. Taking care of each other is what a successful team does.
A good company, who engender loyaly. It works both ways. 😊
When you have plenty of vacation time, you don't feel the need to go away every time you take time off so it's not a case of needing to afford to travel every time. You can spend time with family, host friends visiting you, get a project done, go to events, take care of those non-urgent health things that don't merit sick leave, or just chill out for a week. The biggest scramble for vacation time is always during school holidays and half term breaks as parents need or want to spend time with their kids - often just doing things locally or within day trip range.
In Hungary basic vacation time is 20 days/year until you reach age 25, then you get +1 day and from that time every 3rd year you get +1 vacation day. When you're 45 your vacation days reach 30 days/year, that's the maximum by age, but every children counts +2 days up to 3 children (the 3rd child counts +3 days) until their age 16. So if you are 46 year old and have 3 children under 16 you have 37 days/year. By law you control 80% of the vacation days, so you decide when you want to go holiday and 20% is controlled by the firm, but in practice you always have to come an agreement with your boss.
How to afford your vacation? In the Netherlands you'll get "vacation money" Your employer saves 8% of your salary over the year and pays it in may. So people always have (some) money to spend.
Yeah, that is common also in the Nordics. It used to be return from summer vacation -money. It is a historical things, which was based on when good employees were hard to come buy... so this "rewards" was paid once the came back from the vacation (and not go work for a another company/employer).
Similarly the vacation day amounts "might" be misleading. As in some countries (again history), a work week is calculated as Mon to Sat (so 6 days), even though people only work five days a week... So 30 days of vacation, actually means 5 weeks of vacation. Not sure if the graph was adjusted for this or not...
But still, generally speaking. Europeans have 4 weeks off during the summer holiday period. And then another week off during the winter (often i Feb, a.k.a. sports holiday of skiing holiday). And in some countries, your holiday quota might raise due to local labor union negotiations if you've worked long enough for the company (or are simply just old enough). Plus naturally other more lax rules and agreements can also be made. Simply meaning, that in every country that follows the EU directive MUST give four weeks of vacation. Most countries and/or local agreement actual give more... and as a worker you can again negotiate even more paid vacation (albeit, you need to be a really valuable employee).
oh, and in some countries that "vacation money" can also be converted to actual vacation days (if you value free time from work more than $$$). I've done that a few times, and had 8 weeks off, plus still a bit of "vacation money" still to be paid by the employer. Which was nice.
So they baby sit you.
@@cookielady7662 Kinda. It's a guarantee, regulated by law, that you actually have money left over for vacation. In Norway, the minimum percentage allowed by law to be saved is 12,5% - whilst many companies give you even more of the salary as vacation money. I am 100% sure that if the legal requirement for this went away, and companies stopped doing this, that many people would not be able to think long-term and put off the money themselves - thus making their vacations horrible, and making them even worse workers when they got back from vacation than they were before.
I call it being treated as valued member of society.
@@cookielady7662
In Poland we have 26 days (20 in some cases)... There are also some extra days. For example if the bank holiday is on Saturday, the employer needs to "give back" this day to employees. Every year there is at least one day like this. So one day extra for free. We also have paid sick leave up to 3 months. Sometimes employers also gives some extra money to employees for vacation...
I am from Germany, work a 35-hour week and have 33 days paid vacation. By law, I have to take at least 10 days' vacation in a row once a year (i.e. 14 days including weekends).
But I usually prefer to take a whole month. That's the only way to really 'wind down'. It's also good for my vacation replacement: then they learn something.
And because everything never runs as smoothly as when I'm on duty, my employer also learns what I should be worth to him 🙂
Are these 35 hours considered full time? Everything less than 42 h is not a full time job in Switzerland.
@@Leenapanther No. 40h would be "full time".
I am now a "senior engineer" ... but I haven't received a pay rise for over four years ... and have simply decided that I now only want to work 35 hours a week (for the same money). As my employer wants to keep me, he has simply accepted this.
6v
@@Leenapanther 35h can be full time. Metal & electronics industry has that in their tariffs since a couple of decades, for example.
@@Leenapanther I also work 35h, this is the regular full-time job for jobs in the Metall&Elektro Tarifvertrag.
We don't really "request" our holiday time here in the UK. We just tell the company we work for when we want our time off. There are exceptions to this. For example if you work for a company that has a particularly busy period in the year then it might not be possible at that time. But people tend to know these things and don't plan holidays for that time of the year.
Not sure if this came up already, but just to be clear, vacation in Europe means paid vacation. Meaning, for example in Finland employer has to pay salary for the 4 week summer vacation and 1 week winter holiday (5 weeks in total paid vacation), making it possible to live and be on vacation. Then you can of course negotiate non-paid vacation on top of that, like extra 2 week summer holiday weeks, pushing it to 6 week summer vacation. That's actually really nice and allows you to forget work and recharge your mental battery.
I think I speak for most Europeans when I say that it's very uncommon to be going away during all your vacation time. Vacation just means time off work. You don't need to travel abroad during your vacation. Most people probably travel abroad for 1 or 2 weeks out of the year. That leaves 4-5 weeks of even more vacation+holidays. Time off work is very valuable; You don't have to really DO anything. However, it's very common over here for humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross to give money to those in need, so they can actually afford to go on a vacation.
I found, vacation time spent at home is much less effective than time spent abroad. It doesn't have to be far, find a place with a good price/value ratio and just be away. It doesn't have to be far. The point is to be out of the daily grind - in a hotel, you don't have to make up your bed, don't have to fix breakfast, etc. Not having to worry about those things makes vacation more effective than just staying at home.
I honestly try to travel as much as possible and explore the world. I guess 4-5 times a year I am in some other countries
Personally, I enjoy vacation time at home to be more relaxing than vacation time away from home. I do like to travel away sometimes, but only occasionally.
If you get 30 days of vacation, people usually take one longer break per year. Two to three weeks in the summer. Maybe even longer. Then they often take around the holidays: Christmas into new year. That's a week at least.
All that is half or two third of your vacation time.
Then people take maybe a week off in autumn or in spring. Depending on school holidays etc.
Or they take a long weekend for a short trip. And then you take a couple of days around other bank holidays, Easter holidays etc.. Or you have a private business appointment and you need one or two days off. Or they renovate their house for a week or do garden work just to relax a little.
It's not six weeks vacation at the beach. Who can afford to travel for six week anyways.
@@realulli Still, it costs money to travel. Especially with a family. Staying at home is not the same as the daily grid with work etc. It depends on how you spend your time and not where you spend your time. Some people maybe only have a small apartment. Others have a lot of space. Some people like to travel, others like to have some quite time at home.
In germany we *usually * get 30 days off plus paid holidays. 20 days are guaranteed by law but most employers will give you 25-30 (for ling term employees it's almost always 30). I wouldn't work anywhere where they wouldn't give me 30 days off and ive never encountered a job where they tried to offer less either.
Edit: oh and you are also FORCED to take them. Your boss gets monitored and will get in trouble if you didn't take your vacation days. Taking vacation does not leave a bad impression here at all. There are just rules sometimes for example about how many consecutive weeks you can take off. Or when you can and can't take days off. Also you have to coordinate with your colleagues sometimes. Some jobs require you to hand in your vacation request by the end of the previous year so they can plan. In my jobs so far I just had to coordinate with my colleagues (and important projects) and tell my boss a week or two in advance.
I’m now retired but in my last job in the UK, I received 5 weeks paid leave plus all national (bank) holidays. My employer also operated a Time-off-in- Lieu (TOIL) system. This meant I could reclaim any time I worked over my contracted hours as paid leave.
When I was in the army we used to get “toil” days if we had to work a weekend or had a duty on a public holiday.
It was more of a verbal agreement than an official policy though.
Yes, we get 32 days paid holiday, plus the national holidays. Also flexitime and TOIL (time off in lieu). UK 🇬🇧
Czech here. Minimum by law is 20 fully paid days, most companies offer 25+ days as a bonus. I have 25 days vacation and 3 personal days for the years of service. We also get 6 sick days, but this up to the company, for which we do not need a doctor's note. We get extra 2 weeks of full sickness coverage without any extra insurance. Afterwards you get covered if you are still sick, but the money comes from the social health and is reduced, but this is where your life insurance kicks in to balance the income. On top of this, we have paid bank holidays, which in Czech is quite generous, 14 days a year in total, but they are not moved over to a working day if they fall on a weekend day. By law the employer has to allocate your holiday, in practice the employee suggests and employer accepts. If you do not spend your holidays, you get to carry them over to the next year, but after another 6 months it is up to you to decide with only a short notice to the employer, so they generally push you to carry over maximum 5 days to the next year. If you terminate the contract, you get to spend the unused vacation calculated for the passed work year prior your actual last day or get paid for the unused days.
Productivity is not measured solely by the time you spend in the office. If you are not rested and have no work/life balance, how can you focus and do your job properly?
Other than that, women get 27 weeks of paid maternity (slightly reduced salary) which they start a month before the birth. Father gets two weeks of paid parental leave to help mum with the baby. At the minimum, the woman HAS to take 6 weeks AFTER the baby is born, later it is up to her to decide, but the 6 weeks is a must have. Should anything happen to the mum, then the maternity leave is carried over to the care-taker. After the 27 weeks either parent can stay on a parental leave for up to 3 years. There is a fixed fund and you will receive a proportionate amount to the number of years/months you've decided to split it over to. The parents can be actually swapping on regulat basis as to who stays home (we did it with my husband for both kids). The employer has to keep your place for the duration of your maternity leave. For the duration of parental leave they have to be able to offer you either the same or similar (type/wage) position until after you return.
I have to say - not bad at all :)
When we had 3 small children and I was a stay-at-home mother (UK), we couldn’t afford expensive holidays so we had a tent and went camping. Changed later to overseas every other year alternating with camping.
In Sweden the vacation starts with 25 days (5 weeks). But in many jobs the vacation increases with your age. Like when you become 40 years old you get 30 days (6weeks), and when you're 50 years old you get 32 days. Also, some companies give their employees 30 days vacation from the start.
And ppl that are called in at need, get 13.5% of the whole anual income paid in may.
I live in The Netherlands and get 20 vacation days a year by law, so that’s a minimum. Because I work in construction (on HQ), we have a very decent central labor agreement, CAO, which guarantees you more days. So I get another 8 days, inherited from the times that there was high unemployment and labor had to be redistributed, we call it ADV days. Because I’m over 55 years old, I get another 8 senior days. And we get another 13 days payed out in your salary which can be bought back. About 10 years ago we got a big pay raise for these days. So in total I have 49 days, of which I take 36 days, so I keep the extra salary.
Yeah, and you get full pay during thee whole 25-35 days.
Oh I love that idea of getting more rest as you grow older ! I wish we had the same amount in France. I work for National Post and as a mail woman I only get 3 more days after 55…
It’s safe to say that Denmark, Norway and Sweden have the same vacation laws, starting at 25 days (5 weeks).
Nurse here from Austria. 42 days of paid holidays 😊
respect for your job!
Die verdient ihr auch in eurem Job 👍
Well deserved for the work you do!
Can you imagine how much good a nurse could do to help other people in 42 days?
So important that nurses and people in critical jobs are well rested.
Does 42 days include national hallidays? Or is that on top of 42?
I am from Austria and I have 30 days off, and I damn very well know what to do with my leasure time. I certainly don't live to work.
Hehe, I don't get bored on holidays, too
And you can't just get money instead of vacation days. That would be illegal.
@@reinhard8053 You can in Belgium, but usually only as a last resort. For instance if you really weren't able to take those days, being on sick leave for instance. But the employers won't accept to pay all of your holidays.
Besides, you loose too much of that money in taxes and because of the increased revenue you could end up in a higher tax bracket too. So not really interesting.
In France, a lot things are closed in August, but it's usually a week or two over the month so essential businesses don't overlap much and supermarkets stay open.
Okay, so, I'm Australian. I'm currently spending 2 weeks on vacation in Germany and can't imagine how people could have less than a month vacation and be able to actually enhoy anything. I'm currently on week 8 of my 58 week vacation and only just started to feel like the vacation has really started. (the 58 weeks off comes from salary sacrifice over the last 4 years - 4 years on, 1 year off)
Interested in how that works @Ausecko1 is that like a FIFO type setup where you work 3 weeks on / 1 week off? What would your 4 years salary sacrifice look like?
@@kevfitz8087 normal work, you just get paid 80% of the normal rate for 5 years. The 20% that you forfeit for each of the 4 years is what you're paid in the 5th year.
For your question at 20:20 . The Japanese, they have pretty much the same work mentality as in the US, so they hardly ever get their holidays. Combining their loyalty to their employers and their strong drive to serve the community, leaves them more tired, depressed and of course, far less productive.
To show this chart is just stupid, it doesn't have anything helpful for this topic, as it show annual growth of productivity (how much did the GDP per hour worked increase in a year). This doesn't say anything about the baseline productivity, Japanese could be 10 times more productive than Greek in that chart.
@@moe.m Indeed. On top of that, it's 2021. I wonder if there was anything that had an impact on productivity in 2020 that might have had an influence...
btw. I also like the numbers about the vacation trips with 2 million trips and 800 billion spent. That's 400 thousand per trip? no wonder americans tend to not do those. :D A couple of zeros missing here.
On top of that : productivity has little to do with long working hours. It really depends on what you actually do during working hours. It’s like running a 100 meters or a marathon. It’s not the same speed :-)!
@@ddbe3932what you say it's false. The more you are working the less you will be productive, because of fatigue.
To the Japanese reading these posts, don't you laugh when these Europeans call America and Japan "less productive"?
"land of the free" can't even go on vacation.
Think it refers to the work the average US citizen provides to their employer
We are free because we don't have the government telling us we HAVE to do something. Unlike Europe, whose government and/or employers micromanage their lives and do tell them they MUST take time off. This is just a completely different mindset. If you don't like ours, fine. I don't like yours either.
@@cookielady7662 we get paid to be off work. Most people would rather have free time that is paid for rather than work that time. I get over 8 weeks paid vacation. Certainly would not swap that for only 2 weeks paid. And no paid? Forget it, that's indenture.
@@cookielady7662 Not your government is telling you what to do or not to do, you boss is. Why? Because you government is NOT telling you boss what not to do to you.
@@cookielady7662now, now, dont be bitter and defensive... Just admit you would like to live a better life 😂
In Germany you have between 24 and 32 days of paid vacation. If you become ill and cannot work, your employer must continue to pay your full salary for 6 weeks, after 6 weeks, the health insurance company takes over and pays 80% of your last salary for up to 2 years. Your employer will also be unable or very difficult to dismiss you during this time.
if i get sick during my vacation, they return my off time.
But how can you be productive? Lol
@@tristanridley1601 very easily. When you're well rested, you're much more effective at work.
OMG. And you wonder why we have Polish jokes.
In France I have 7 weeks paid vacation. We generally think good employees are employees who are focused to their work to be productive, and you are more productive if you’re generally happy, have a good work/life balance, have some time to rest and so on...
hello ! As a French woman I can explain to you what to do during your vacation time ! you don't have to go somewhere to be on vacation, but you can use your free paid time by spending more time with your kids, or do some renovations in your home, or do long walks in the woods to feel peaceful, or enjoy the company of your friends and family, or take the time to improve a hobby, or do the things you never have time to do when working, or sit in the sunshine with a good book or make some gardening or just DO NOTHING ! that's live man ! As a German viewer just said, we work for living but we don't live for working ! And our productivity is higher considering that we spend less time at work, daily and annually ! Just to be organized in your work, just to know what you have to do in the among of time dedicated to your job, and that's it ! Life is far too short to spend it on working all the time ! And I think that the obsession for work is also linked to the importance that you Americans give to earn money, as if it is determining who you are ! Bullshits ! For me it's a kind of slavery, addicted to work and money, at the point that you ask yourself quote "what would i do during my vacations if I had so many?" Just think about it ! Anyway I like your videos, always interesting to have an american's point of view ! Peace and happiness ! Bonne journée !
Ha, 2 of my former coworkers laughing in "taking 3 months off to bike across the South America and knowing they still have a job waiting for them when they get back".
I usually end up taking the whole of December off myself because I never manage to use all of my vacation days. - Love from Prague
well that czechs economy and work system has issues thats so widely known that even czech people admit it and make videos about it. ...and humouristically portraying the standard czech dude bathing in beer instead of water, having a mullet haircut and always wearing the strangest of clothes
There is a difference between taking time off and paid leave. I could talk to my employer and take half a year or longer of unpaid leave (with preparation time of course), because they are always looking for more qualified workers and wouldn’t find a replacement anyway, but that’s just not paying when no work is done. Paid vacation is completely different. It’s part of your salary. It’s like more like an additional paid month per year.
@@ThePlumbeus Sure, some places you can take as long as you want of unpaid leave. Usually you can't expect to just come back to work like nothing happened though, have all your benefits uninterrupted, lunches paid...bosses happy to see you, etc.
For us, vacation is about resting and recharging energy and you can split your collected vacationdays in a reasonable way instead of using all 20-30 days at once. Or if you want to travel, half of them for travelling and last half for resting from travelling.
And an another improtant thing is, if you get sick during your vacation, you can get back your lost vacationdays with a doctors note as an evidence, because being sick is not resting, your body is fighting against the sickness and after that your body need to recover from that fight to get in shape for work and of course it's not productive, if you infect other workers while your are going to work sick. It cannot be a good thing, that a whole division or more is going down, because of the infection-chain.
As a train driver, I had 5 weeks annual leave and 9 floating days. Worked a 4 day week. 35 hour week. Good pay.
So sometimes, I could have 6 days off in a row sometimes too [so like another week]. Other weeks [rare] I could work 6 but the average was 4.
So was off over half a year! Pay was good too as is the pension [I'm on it now].
We could also go off sick [also if you needed an operation etc. with doctors note]/have paternity or bereavement leave and still get full pay [sickness did go down to 50% after 6 months depending on circumstances].
I used to work for a French company that imposed a minimum three-week holiday in the summer because it was more efficient for the majority of their staff to be off at the same time. Some people had different times off to keep the show on the road, but the vast majority were gone for at least three weeks, some for four consecutive weeks!
European employment protection laws require six weeks to 3 months’ notice for firing. If you have been employed at the same job for several years, the notice period is sometimes legally extended to 6 to 8 months. So your opinion that it's not so easy to get fired in the USA sounds completely ridiculous to European ears.
Poor USA, i felt really moved about the way you guys are surprised by 1 month vacation. In Spain we have 1 week for easter, 2 weeks on Christmas and 1 month in summer, plus some 3-4 days weekends spreaded through the Calendário.
Also if u dont have much money or your belong to a special group (like retired people) you have public vacation agencies that give huge discounts to tickets and hoteles.
It is paradoxical that the land of the free is the land forced to live for work. Where is the freedom in that.
(Btw japan was low on productivity per hour because they put in a lot of hours, so even if they have high productivity the ratio per hour goes rock bottom)
Again, doesn't seem like most Europeans get it. Sure, there are some Americans that want ridiculous amounts of time off, but many of us are fine with what we have. There's way more freedom in not having someone, most especially the government, constantly in your business telling you that you have to take vacation days. We're all about individualism here.
@@cookielady7662Same mirrored "issue" is those in the US longing for a System where a longer leave is atleast a Possibility.
In the end, you are your master everywhere. Individuality is your own thing, less vacay, more, semi-vacant, whatever you need, different hurdles to get it.
The vacation time and its use is baked into how the countries work.
Half of Europe is part time small form farming, because that's what you have in your backyard.
Picking thrash, collecting scrap and paper, is a school time mainstay.
Keeps people modest and involved with nature, saves money and stays in place where propaganda for "grander", lobbied services would be found in no time. You cannot be forced to la down and Rest, you do what is needed, as you see fit. We semand rest, as europeans were brought up in a time, where only "worky work-work", was mandatiry labour, the rest was up to you, small kings, everyone on his own, payong tax, and doing work on lords Fields, or being a paid, or paying keeper.
I am not joking when saying that half people live like a fantasy, easy mode, Michigan/Wisconsin resident, who also functions in a denser network where there's less mandatory travel, as the distances are 1/5 of the US for most.
The practice of gardening and orchardry (and widespread beekeeping) is also a part of optimizing your surroundings until the levels of sustainable, middle age like, kind of point, where every bit of land has its caretaker, and there is less "abandoned" land, and that land also doesn't suffer much, as it is well taken care of, and is deliberately used to naturally(read in the mindspace of the locals) support produce production without swathes of strained land, and big farming is not done as "bigly", and is supportes by mostly naturally abundant water(for the most part). corporations cannot fir example take natural water, like some South states and their Nestlé and the like induced related droughts, hell there is too many likeminded people next to each other for that to ever fly and manifest. That's just the benefits of the "seemingly restrictive/uncomfortable" realities of living in Europe, where people are not as divided as for what to do with their land. Everybody, Portugal to Ukraine and the Baltics, is one foot in the garden, or their relatives are.
The obligatory number of vacation days is 23 (work days, without counting weekends and holidays) and there the holidays amount to 16 days (national, regional and local) a few usually fall on weekends.
If you plan your vacation around weekwnds+holidays you can reach the described vacation time but it may vary.
For example: Semana Santa (easter week) has one national holiday on Viernes Santos (Good Friday) and all autonous regions adds another day on either Thursday (most) or Monday after easter so for 3-4 vacation days you get a 7-8 days but that's thenonly holiday where it's guaranteed. During Christmass when the 25th is on the wekend, and so is New Year, you're left only with Reyes (Jan 6th) so you need to use more vacation days but since I live in Catalunya so we also have Sant Esteve on the 26th, unless the 25th is on Suturday :-(.
At least the city makes sure that the local holidays are never on the weekend (one is always on a Monday and the other is if it falls on a weekend it is moved to the nearest work day).
@@cookielady7662nos da mucha pena en España (Europa) perder nuestra libertad individual y que nos obliguen a tener 4 semanas de vacaciones, además de dias en Navidad, Semana Santa, y en las fiestas de nuestra ciudad o pueblo. Y también nos da mucha pena ser poco trabajadores, ya que siendo 47 millones de habitantes tenemos 81 millones de visitantes al año 😂
UK Here: I used to manage a team of 50, with other managers reporting to me. On average my team had 30 days leave, plus 8 or 9 public holidays a year. With some of the team, just a few, we had to actively manage them to make sure they took all their leave. Luckily the company we were in allowed us to sell or buy holiday days. I always bought another 5, which gave me almost 7 weeks a year off. Live is for living, not working.
If all you think about is the time you get off from work, I doubt you're really working the other 40 weeks either.
@@karlbmiles If you let your work be your identity, you probably don't have a personality at all. No one remembers you for how much money you had...
In the places I worked at here in Europe, regularly spending more time in the office than the allotted 42.5 hours was an indication that you were incompetent! Boy did that screw up my American colleagues who transferred here on learning all those extra hours they put in worked against them!
I'm Europeian, Norwegian. Vacation doesn't have to cost anything! Just walk into the woods, fish, swim...hunt. Or just sit on the balcony and have a beer. But that migth be the main difference between having 30 days off and 5. We don't have to stress to relax. ;)
I live in Poland and I have 4 weeks of paid leave in the summer to use at once or spread it out over time. As a truck driver who delivers products to city shops, bars, restaurants about 40 pallets a day, when I go on vacation I am replaced by 2 students with category B driving licenses, which means they cannot use a truck, but they can drive delivery vehicles (Ford Transit) which can hold 4 pallets . Students earn extra money during the summer and I rest. Of course, I often get calls from the guys who replace me, asking about the right place or method of delivery, it's hard to learn the route in a few days, but I'm mentally resting and it makes me laugh more than it stresses me out. After the holidays, the cars with lifts are much less used, but in a few months, Christmas comes and the demand for people and cars increases again and students come back again. This system works !
In Finland I have four weeks of summer vacation and one week winter holiday.
How it goes, we usually plan our vacations by teams so that there is always enough people at the office and then when we have come to an agreement, we let our boss know that "here is our holiday schedule for the year" and that's it.
Also, I do not carry my work phone or my laptop with me. I leave them at the office. My free time is my free time.
Naturally my boss and close collegues have my private number for emergencies, but I have not had such emergency that they would have had to call me in my free time..
Australians are given 4 weeks annual vacation each year. You can accumulate them but once you hit 8 weeks your employer will strongly recommend that you take them. Plus for public holidays, eg, 4th July you are paid for it. Also if you have worked for the same company for 10 years (7 yrs in a Government job) you are given 13 weeks of vacation time, fully paid which you can take in one hit or you can split in half and still get paid your full wage
i wish we had that 10 year gift here in the netherlands. im already motivated to keep working long for a company. but that would motivate me even more hehe
Here the companies encourage and remind you to take you vacation. They want happy and not stressed out workers. Most employees in Germany have ca 25-30 days of vacation. If you are disabled, you get 5 more days by law. 20 is just the minimum by law for a 5-day-week employee.
It's not just Europe. The US is the only country that doesn't have a mandatory minimum national holiday entitlement.
In Italy August 70% of shops are closed. There are some regulation to keep opened some fondamental services like pharmacies, grocery stores, newspapers sellers and so on. For example if you go to a pharmacy that is closed for vacation on August, you'll find a on the pharmacy door an advertisment with all the nearests "pharmacies in turn" (pharmacy opened during that week) and this regulation is made so that there is always a pharmacy opened in any zone of the city
I live in Lithuania. I get 23 work days of vacation. The law also mandates that I am allowed to take 10 workdays in a row (12 days if I were working 6 day work weeks). Outside that, there are national holidays. Most businesses still stay open round the year and only close down on January 1st. The HR team in my company also follows up if we fail to plan our vacation times and have unused vacation time. The requirement is to notify 2 weeks in advance, but that is mostly to get the payments in order, which is not an issue if you ask for vacation pay with your salary.
I will take my vacations and not travel anywhere. Might take a car trip within the country to visit relatives a few times or go to the beach during summer, but other than that I might take a week off and just chill at home, maybe work on some projects, play video games (in the near future just spend time with the kids)
Before I retired, if I didn't take all my 32 and a 1/2 days paid holiday (Does not include public holidays either), a certain proportion could be carried over to the next leave year. One of my colleagues use to save up an extra couple of weeks holiday over a three year period so he could spend 5 or 6 weeks in the US to visit his son and some American friends. We always worked out holidays amicably and equally at work, if any cover was necessary that was a problem for senior management. They're paid for that.
My last job was part time in UK, I still got my 4 weeks holiday, 2 of them I would go abroad and 2 just chill at home. Some big factories close in UK for 2 weeks so everyone has the same holiday in Summer, but you still get the other weeks owed. My job was involving helping people so if I was needed for a day out of my holiday (if I was home) I would get that day in lieu
Some places close for a couple of weeks to allow for refurbishment in the factory.
2023 I had 36 days paid vacation - not including weekends, national holidays, paid sick leave, days off due to working longer on other days and the days of paid vacation I still had from 2022.
German here: 30 vacation days freely placed, plus 12 to 16 national holiday day, where everybody has holiday plus 2-day weekends each week. Plus unlited sick days, plus up to two years paid pregnancy/newborn leave.
I work for Dutch government and get 10 weeks paid vacation. Yes, you heard that right. I also can choose 5 weeks, other 5 weeks I can work and get paid. Its a choice. Personaly I choose 10 weeks vacation trough whole year. 1 week skiing, 1 week spring vacation to south Europe, 3 weeks summer vakation somewhere warm and in autumn we go 1 week somewhere else. Rest of it goes to free time for family and personal business.
Wow, that's a good job. I think that is the difference with Americans, for us a good job means good holidays, nice atmosphere, stability... but in the USA is about how much you make.
same here, dutch government. You work 40 hours, get paid 36 hours. Its called ATV and that is 26 days next to your mandatory 25 days. Your employer does activly remind you to take your vacation hours. It is frowned upon if you dont take them.
I'm Portuguese and the American situation is ridiculous. We get 24 days off a year, we get vacation pay, but it doesn't mean we are going on a vacation, necessarily. It's great to do your hobbies, hang out, do things at home, whatever you want without thinking about work.
Studies show that if you had 30 days off, management would forget why they hired you in the first place.
@@karlbmiles surprise! Management gets 24 days too lol
Remember that all of these figures are also the mandated MINIMUMS, most people have more days off.
Holidays in Poland:
-You get 20 days of paid vacation if you have
German here: I have 30 days of paid vacation plus 13 public holidays and 2 extra holidays where we don't open (Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve). So it's 45 days off. I also have flexible work hours, so right now there are 80 hours of overtime sitting in my account waiting to be spent as free time.
As for the process of requesting time off: I do have to coordinate with my colleagues. We can't all take time off at the same time. It's common courtesy to give the people with children time off during school breaks. In return, the people without kids can take time off in the off season and save a bit on the vacation itself.
The chart is saying that just because people are at work doesn't mean they are producing tangible output that contributes to the nations GDP. Japan does poorly because people work very long hours, but they are not being productive during a lot of that time as they are so tired. What we really see is that there is a balance between the hours people work and the output they produce. Too little is no good, but too much as the chart shows doesn't work either.
Then they aren’t drinking enough coffee.
In april I'm going on a short 4-day trip to a resort on the border of Belgium and France with my wife and adult children. In may I'm going on a three day trip to Hamburg in Germany with my wife. In june I'm having an 18 day vacation in which I'll be going to Cyprus for 8 days to enjoy the sun and the Mediterranian with my wife. In july I'm going to the F1 race in Budapest, Hungary, for 5 days with my adult children. In august I'm going for a three day trip to Munich, Germany, with my wife and daughter where they will visit the Adèle concert and finally in september I'm having a 12 day vacation in which I'll be going ro Cyprus for 8 days (again) with my wife. That leaves me with 4 vacation days for the remainder of the year. The reason I'm able to have so much vacation is first of all I'm only working 4 days a week. I don't work fridays. So when I take 4 days off of work, I'm away for 10 days. Secondly, evere day I work, I work an extra half hour. This gives me 96 extra vacation hours every year. Yeah I definitely work to live.
You'll need to go back to work to get some rest. Tip for Hamburg : Miniatur Wunderland.
I am dutch living in the US now. When I started my first job i think I had 20 vacation days, because contractwise we worked 36 hours but actually 40 we were compensated for the 4 hours a week we worked too much. I worked day-shift 7am-3pm which included a 30 minute lunchbreak. Because of labor laws if we worked 4 hours continuous we had the right for a 15 minute break. At 35 i started earning 'ouwe-lullen-dagen' (old-dicks-days which should be translated to old-persons-days, 1 day extra per 5 years)
So at a time I had 22 vacation days and 8 compensation days. (6 weeks) plus the additional official national holidays.
After a few years I was given the opportunity to switch to 4x9hrs. So I lost my 8 days, but a week's vacation would only cost me 4 days.
On top of that we had a vacation bonus of 8% of our annual salary (more or less a 13th month) paid out in May. It was taxed higher so it wasn't actually an extra month but came close.
Now in the US I have 12 vacation days only because I work already more than 2 years for this company, but max will be 3 weeks at 5 years.
Indeed in the Netherlands it is more difficult to get fired, at my current company in the US if my project ends and I can't find another project the chance is pretty big I get fired. While in a similar job in Europe the company will look for projects for you to place you, here in the US a big part of that project-search is an employee responsibility.
Australian nurse - in my state most of us get five weeks of paid annual leave (six if you work weekends), with the option to purchase additional leave. We also have 13 public holidays (paid if you’re not required to work, overtime rates if you are).
Across the country you also get long service leave. Originally created to allow workers to return ‘home’ (the UK) and available after 15 years’ continuous service, in most places you can now access it pro rata after as few as seven years. It accrues at a minimum rate of 0.867 weeks per yea; in my sector that’s the casual rate while permanent employees accrue 1.334 weeks per year, or 26 weeks after 15 years.
Personal (sick and carer’s) leave is separate from this.
I live in Australia. I have, on several occasions been put on mandatory leave by the company I work for. Since leave days continue to accrue at 4 weeks per year having too much leave banked is seen by the company as a liability and therefore I've been told 'book some leave or we'll book it for you'.
Not to mention that in my occupation is it common practice that a period of 2 weeks continuous leave must be taken each year. The logic behind this is that if anything 'shifty' is going on that you're actively covering up it will likely come to light if you're not there for 2 weeks. This is usually accomplished as there is a 2 week 'shut down' period during Christmas New Year where everyone is away except for 1 or 2 people manning the fort. This works out well because with the public holidays and weekends you generally only end up using 15 or 16 continuous days off while only using 6 or 7 of your mandatory 20 annual leave days.
Japan's productivity is low due to the massive amount of hours worked, approx 50hrs per week , but are expected to work unpaid overtime upto 80 hrs per month, so that's another 20 hours per week.
Yeah, and it also seems to be a thing in Japan that workers stay for overtime just to make a show of working hard, even if there is nothing to do actually.
@@roerd yep
@@roerdLeaving before the boss is considered lazy
7:16 there are also many European countries that have paid holidays that pushes them past France...someone please explain to her that Europe is not the same as France Lol 😂
Working hard doesn't necessarily mean you're working productively.
Really? What is Australia known for? What are the national achievements produced by all your weeks off on somebody else's dime?
@@karlbmiles What are you talking about?
@@VolrinSeth Lazy Europeans.
@Ryan Many people in the US use up their "vacation days" not to go on formal "vacations," but instead for individual days off where there is an important event - for instance, my son's college graduation which is on a Wednesday.
I live in the US in NJ, and I work at a remote job that is based in CA. I am VERY lucky that my company is quite generous with the leave policy... We all get (per year):
- Unlimited PTO (vacation) days, usually limited to a maximum of 2 weeks at one time, with manager approval
- 10 sick days (PTO is NOT to be used for sick days)
- a few paid days off for bereavement of a close relative, or jury duty - not limited, but based on individual circumstances
- 3.5 months of new parent leave for both mothers AND fathers, including adoptive parents
Also, the entire company will close down for these additional paid days:
- 10 paid holidays throughout the year
- 3-4 "Wellness Fridays" - usually given in months that have no actual paid holidays
- 2 entire weeks from mid-December to the beginning of January
All of that said, there are a couple of caveats to this.
- Some (but not all) managers tend to discourage using more than 20 days of PTO per year, or more than 1 two-week "vacation"
- In most jobs in my company, no one does your work FOR you while you are temporarily out - all of your work is still left for you when you return from your vacation, so it's really not advantageous to take PTO unless needed
- When I recently had a major lower spinal surgery, I requested a medical leave of absence. However, when my leave extended just a few days past 6 weeks because of my surgeon's schedule for followups, I had a bit of a hard time, and had to submit extra documentation from the surgeon as to why the extra 4 days were medically necessary. (My surgeon had initially completed paperwork stating that my recovery period would be 3 months, but the company only allowed me 6 weeks of job protection by law.) I expect to be returning to work at the 6-week and 4-day mark (so, still before 7 weeks) and, while I feel like that shouldn't have been a big deal for a company this generous with PTO, for some reason it was.
For most Slovaks, their vacation is what they are looking forward to the whole year. Work is work, it's not living, vacation is when you're living and can do whatever you want with your life, even if it meant sleeping all day or spending time at home with your family.
We are a landlock country, so most people go to the beach to some other country - Croatia being the number one destination. Also Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Tunis. Many people have a one or two weeks of beach vacation every year and for some people it's something to brag about. But many people also spend their holidays here in Slovakia, in the mountains or visiting castles and towns, lakes or aquaparks.
Going on a vacation is kind of a status thing, it's what you are supposed to do, because everyone is doing it. And when summer is close, people will ask you where will you go or where have you been on your vacation this year.
When you are under 33, you have four weeks of paid vacation (20 work days) and if you are over 33 or if you are raising a child, you have five weeks (25 work days). And if you add all 15 bank/national holidays, if you are lucky, you end up with 35 or 40 free work days in a year.