Paid time off in America compared to the United Kingdom
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- Today I'm talking about the shockingly low amount of paid vacation time, or annual leave, that Americans get. Many Americans have zero paid time off and if they do it gets used up any time they are sick, if they're lucky.
How much annual leave do you currently get? Please like and subscribe if you're interested in hearing about the many differences between the United States and Scotland!
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Another big difference is that UK/European employers are not generally allowed to contact you whilst you are on holiday/day leave. Your paid time off is for you to switch off and recharge and that is very much respected. And in most instances it is your manager that needs to arrange appropriate cover too! I understand it is the opposite in most instances in the US.
It's also against the law for them to contact you if you've rung in sick.
So glad that employees have better conditions in UK. Time off is needed for good mental health, it's not that we are lazy (well, some are but most people work hard).
Holliday and sickness.
Here in Denmark, you can't have holidays when sick.
Example: Your vacation starts, but the day before, you break your leg. Six weeks in a cast. Because you broke your leg, your vacation will be postponed, to when you are well again. Then you can have your vacation.
That's the same here you get the holidays back if your not fit to work
Yes I think several countries do that, it’s great!
Same here (UK).
I should damn well think so , too .
What else is ridiculous in the US is that you can be let go on the spot.
Europe has redundancy processes enshrined in law.
Yes, most places in the US they can fire you immediately without any reason! It’s ridiculous
@@peterkonradort Not to mention US Maternity leave.
@@sandersson2813 oh yeah, many places in the US will straight up fire you if you get pregnant
I recently retired here in the UK from a food factory after 28 years! By then I was up to 31 days annual leave + 8 days public holidays
I work for an organisation in the UK, mandated for 35 hours per week. I've worked there for 12 years, I have now 34 paid holiday days per year plus eight public holidays, PLUS five days of Christmas week given free (paid) outside your regular holiday days. On top of that free yoga classes, free mental health checks, free debt helpline and legal advice, free eye tests and staff discounts at local cafes and shops. Also the usual paid sickness leave, paid maternity/paternity leave. There's probably more but forgotten them.
I’m from Scotland, my last job I worked a four day week and was entitled to 32 days paid holiday every year😎🏴✌️
Is that paid vacation or time including holidays?
@@BradBowmannewspoliticsbourbon it was part of my contract of employment…..at first when I started I had 28 days full pay holiday entitlement, every 2 years of service I would have an extra day entitlement added to my holiday period. That worked out 4 weeks 4 days full paid holidays. Because I worked a four day week it was like having 2 months off work. Also had 10 weeks full pay then 10 weeks half pay if I was off due to being injured at work.
Thanks for the added clarification. Here in the states, aside from state holidays like Christmas...we have about two weeks vacation at best.
@@bigaldo246
So many Brits dont realise that this was exactly the same prior to the EU Working Time Directive gave the legal right to paid time off for annual leave. It also gave part timers the same rights at work that full timers did and introduced laws on rest periods.
It so annoyed me when so many voted to leave the EU when this is just one thing normal working people benefitted from EU membership.
But leaving doesn't mean it has to change though does it, or that the UK can't implement their own sensible labour laws.
@@muzz852 no offence but that's a naïve question.. as it depends on who's making the laws. most Tories would like nothing better than to remove worker friendly laws
And that all changed seven years ago ... no it didn't. Your reasoning is akin to people staying with an abusive partner because they're sometimes nice to them.
I am in the US and I am very lucky to get 28days vacation off the back with my company. Then added us holidays plus sick days and personal and pls for death in family (3days).I also get the week of from Christmas thru new years day fully paid. And I get also random days off when they want too like mental days or employee appreciation days off with pay. It's a very large media company! With media agencies under is umbrella But here's why I get all of that...are you ready?? It's a UK owned/based company ! Lol lol that is why!
So I get off the back 28 days reg vacation. 5 sick days. 3 personal. 6 "free days" used mostly summer but now they are saying to be used before November of that calendar year. Then now add on the US holidays like Thanksgiving thursday & Friday off with pay. Forth of July if the 4th falls on a Tuesday we get Monday off as well with oay. The whike week between Christmas and NY'S and there a 2hr window for lunch if needed (it's reg an hour break with 9 to 530 work scheduled hrs ) I WFH so this is even better.
This is why I want to relocate to the UK (Scotland particularly) I'm ust nit ready to ask for a transfer (that's if they okay it) wondering what the work visa process would be like for them ??🤔
Will cross tgat bridge when I get there I guess .
Thanks for sharing! I had a feeling working fir a UK MAIN Office based n owner was a blessing whenI first started working for one of their agencies back in 2014. Almost 10yrs now and it only gets better n better with time off! 😊
Everybody should be in a Union they will get legal representation in any dispute
I’ve been working as a dental hygienist for 30 years in Kansas and after traveling overseas and visiting Scotland, England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, I will say they truly do have a healthier, calmer, safer, and much more secure life. One thing I have noticed is that the two generations behind mine (I’m GenX) are doing that has changed the workplace is that they call in a lot more often. While at first i thought “lazy millennials” but I’ve now come to realize is that they grew up KNOWING what life was like as they were the first generation that basically had the internet from day one and could virtually visit and learn about these countries.
My wife recently went back into banking and was amazed at what she was offered in comparison to when she left the industry 6 years ago. She was hired at a completely different bank with 6 weeks paid vacation, 20 PTO days per year, and she negotiated up on both pay and vacation.
Now if our backwards state would expand Medicare and legalize weed (we’re surrounded on three sides with it already), we could get out of the 1800’s here.
Recent generations have ridiculous expectations in life.
@@sandersson2813 what time did you travel from?
@@terranwoolley4226 Its true. You have idiots coming out of university with a media studies degree expecting 50k, expecting to be able to buy property in central London at 25, expecting everyone to bend over backwards to them.
They're the most deluded, naive, workshy generation there has ever been.
The world doesn't owe you a living, but for many born on the last 20 years, it seems they think it does.
Please don't question which time I'm from when you're American, the most backward country on the developed world.
@@sandersson2813 We have more accurate and realistic expectations in life. Working your ass off for your entire life like a good little worker bee for 10-15 years of sad old tired retirement is NOT the way to live.
@@sandersson2813
Don't be bitter at younger people just cause you got exploited and spit out like a broken part. They have proof that people in other 1st world nations are living 3Xs better than they are just because we allowed corporations to run our government.
Really. Don't be afraid to admit they screwed you and you can't do anything about it as a result of your own voting results. This is 1 of your "life lessons", old timer. They so-called kids know what's up. A person working in a McDonald's in Germany can support their family with that 1 job. Why can't an honest person do that here? Please explain this to me. What's the difference?
I left my previous job after 5.5 years with 18 days of unused holiday pay. Iwas paid out for those 18 days in my last salery payment. I started in my new role with 20 days annual holiday allowance in addition to 12 days of public holiday, I am also entitled to 15 days of paid sick leave per year. When I have worked for my current employer for 6 years my holiday entitlement will increase from 20 to 25 days per year.
A few years ago the government here Mondayized the public holidays, if a holiday falls on the weekend it moves to the following Monday so people dont miss out.
Most employers I have worked for (UK) pay 6 months sick leave in a 4 year period. Having said that, it was 2005 the last time I was off sick. I can't imagine working a month without a days leave let alone a year. I have managed my full 30 days, so will carry over 5 days into 2024. Woohoo!!!
Get in !
Another big difference is that we in America do not get paid a lot..so we work every hour we can to make enough money to pay for housing and food..any "time off" is not paid thus it is money out of your pocket. I worked 100 hour weeks for several years, got lots of OT and was very happy to get it..I paid off my house in 12 years..on a 30 year morgage..
Your U..S. pay , on average , is better than U.K . True , you may have medical expenses , but 100 hours is mad , man , ....well done , tho' .Best from a wet , cold England .
The mental toll here in America from working a lot with little pto to take breaks is terrible. You hoard pto and try your best to push through times when you need to rest. If for example I want to take one two week vacation in Europe a year, I gotta push through all the holidays, just to make it work.
Richest country in the world! Go figure.
if you are lucky to get paid holiday time.. good luck getting the employer to actually let you use your paid time off.. they will guilt and guilt you.. unless your in a rare great company. As stated a lot of us Americans are scared to take PTO because we pressured not to.. might loose that promotion.. may be seen as an unmotivated worker etc
You didn't mention that in the UK it's usually to still be paid when on sick leave. In my job before I retired, I would have been paid in full for the first 6 months of sick leave and half pay for the next 6 months. In the USA people take PTO when they're ill because they get zilch otherwise. They also have to find someone else to do their job which seems weird from a British perspective.
I retired at the end of last May, so I was entitled to 5/12ths of my leave allocation this year; as it happens, I don’t usually take much time off in the winter because the weather’s miserable, and we had 5 days of public holidays in April/May this year (2 at Easter, the May Day holiday, the Spring holiday, and the extra day for the Coronation), so I’d actually only used 6 days’ leave by the time I retired, and the rest of my allocation was paid with my final salary.
In an earlier life, I was made redundant with a number of other people after I’d been with the same company for over 22 years; my employment contract was rather more generous than the statutory minimum, so I was paid so many weeks’ salary for each year of service; a higher rate for each year of service after age 40; and they made the mistake of making us redundant in the third week of January, so they also had to buy out that years’ entire leave entitlement (30 days!). My final redundancy payment amounted to over a years’ salary.
In all honesty, America doesn’t seem like the greatest country in the world 😂.
Bad employment laws
Bad education (not that Scotland is that great atm)
And no free healthcare.
But they have "freedom"😂 or some nonsense like that. All these commie countries giving paid holidays disgraceful!!!!
I get 36 days, including the 8 bank holidays, and up to one year on full pay for sickness.
Because at least 20 days off is mandatory you can end up with your employer forcing you to take paid time off, usually towards the end of the financial year, if you haven’t taken enough leave yet.
In Britain I've often seen jobs adverts saying, 'Prior holiday booking honoured'.
Yes. When you get a new job here they’ll always ask if you have any holidays pre-booked and they’ll almost always still let you take those holidays, even if they’re on days that you normally might not get off. That doesn’t exist in the states lol
This is paid time off in the United States compared to the United Kingdom! 🇺🇸 🇬🇧
I get 12 weeks paid holidays, wouldn't settle for less... life is for living.
In the US, they just quit
, take time off, then look for another job.
For many Americans, the only time off work that they can get is any time they have between jobs.
I'm in the UK and get 41 days paid leave (including the bank holidays), plus we're allowed 3 days on top of that to volunteer for a good cause, also fully paid.
Working as a governnent employee ,Civil Servant I soon had 42 days annual leave ; 30 days basic , 8 Public Hols ., 4 Public Sector days .Bliss .
Thanks you for sharing
I was lucky with my US employers - thought starting with 3 weeks vacation was hard after moving from UK 😜 Stayed at company long enough to get to 6 weeks vacation…and then they switched us to unlimited PTO 🙄 As highly suspicious employees we quickly figured out this was just a nice loophole to mean they didn’t have to pay us any accrued PTO if we left 😡
I’m so Americanized now that the 2 week vacation did seem soooo long - that’s just sad!
I retired 11 years ago here in the UK, my last job I was in for 22 years and got 30 days paid Annual Leave NOT COUNTING the 12 days Public Holidays! Can’t imagine how Americans cope.
12? 8 , surely?!
@@normanpearson8753 civil service working at Air Command we got a few extra as far as I remember.
i had 41 days off working for a university in Belfast
Awesome 👍👍👍
When a company is down sizing, in a America you still call it "fired" when its redundancy in the rest of the world. You're "fired" in other countries if you do something wrong in job, that warrants firing.
In the US they actually usually call redundancies “lay offs” or being laid off!
@@peterkonradort maybe we hear it being called fired, when it's being politised by a particular party.
But you certainly can't be fired in European countries without going through a fair process. Not to say companies don't it, and if you believe you have been fired unfairly, there are mechanisms to challenge the firing. And companies are made pay compensation if found to have broken company policies on disciplineary procedures. or someone was fired no good reason.
With many UK companies you will accrue more holiday days on top of the minimum based on how long you've worked for the company.
For sure! But regardless of what the company does, you’ll still start out with more holiday on day one than you would ever get in a lifetime of working for most American companies
i worked for a business in Santa Monica for 18.5 years 26 hours a week and got ZERO paid vacation
Lord , I worked in the UK , we got 42 days off , yearly ,,,,including Public Holidays . 30 , plus 8 PH s plus 4,,, more! Get over here !
WHY?
What is the reasoning behind the US Lack of Employment Value?
They would get better (rested) employees if they gave them time off.
Unemployment would be way down as well, because people would enjoy going to work, because they know they will get 28+ days off a year.
Then it theres the issue with NO FREE HEALTH CARE - Even countries which the US calls third world have Free Health Care.
Ok the fact that too many Americans don’t have the money or the time to go abroad is perfectly valid, but there’s also another factor, that America is about the same size as Europe, with a huge variety of geographies and climates, allowing for skiing, hiking, camping, surfing, sunbathing and city exploring all within the same country, admittedly, sometimes with less charm, beauty or cultural weight than European counterparts.
Yeah, sure.
That figures!
So how does one find an electrical engineering job in Europe? My husband swears they don’t exist. I’m a teacher and can teach anywhere.
Yeah, we don't have a single electrical engineer in the whole of Europe, we all live in caves. 🙄 but some of us have running water.
Do a job search, "engineer Scotland" ! Lots of them.
Try UK recruitment agencies and search for the type of Electrical engineering he does.
I’m not sure that is the case about teaching anywhere, definitely not Scotland.
Also Americas idea of an engineer is very much different to Europe. He might not be properly qualified over here.
@@bobdidit55 Indeed, you need to have knowledge and skills gained through The Teaching Council, plus you'd have to learn a completely new curriculum, and if you're a Geography teacher, you'll have to learn there's a world outside the USA 😂😂😂
Did Angela return to the states? 😢
No she's still here in town! We're co-parenting the best we can.
I don't know if I've ever used all 28 days annual leave. My boss doesn't like it when I have annual leave days left over at the end of the year. I have no idea why he doesn't like it, surely it would be to his benefit for employees to not take them all 🤷♂
They’re required by law to give them to you. There’s only a certain number you can carry over but basically the company could get in trouble if their employees aren’t taking all their annual leave
In the financial sector not taking your leave is seen as suspicious behaviour. Are you trying to keep fraudulent activity covered up by not allowing colleagues to look at your work?
@@davidfisher9026 I work in manufacturing. Everyone looks at everyone else's work. We don't have an HR department to get all upset over nothing so it's just him that seems to have a problem with it. He's a really nice bloke so he might just be concerned that I'm not getting what I'm entitled to. Even if I don't have anything to do while I'm on leave 🙄
I now get 12 months PAID Vacation/Holiday per year....... Tony in Essex
I disagree with just one of your statements. You said that UK employers have to pay you for any untaken leave if you quit. I don't believe that is true. However, they must pay you for any accrued leave. So, if you leave 6 months through the leave year and haven't taken any leave, then they owe you half of your annual entitlement, and so on. For example, every month worked during the year may earn you a 2 1/2 day leave entitlement.
I’ll try to be more clear in future videos! When I say untaken annual leave I mean annual leave that you have already earned but not taken.
To be fair the same goes the opposite direction, if you take more annual leave than you’ve earned and you leave the company then you’ll have to pay back what you hadn’t earned yet.
@@peterkonradort No problem and I only mentioned it to correct any wrong impression given. Companies can claw any excess back but I wonder how many do. Taking more than your accrued allowance before leaving is probably quite rare.
@@RonSeymour1 yeah it did happen at the last company I worked for but it was not very common. I was a manager and I still had to get approval from my boss before I could let my guys do it lol
I don't have any vacation time (paid) in America, already working nonstop for 6 years, having 10 minutes break only every day.
Technically a slave.
Peter, I meant to say .... The danger is with your videos that the UK is going to be flooded with immigrants from the USA. Perhaps you need to put in the odd negative thing about the UK but to be honest I cannot think of anything you could say. Errr, lets see ......
Funny but true🤣
Peter, the danger is with your videos that the UK is going to be flooded with imagrants
You obviously have no idea of (or the "reality" of as you say) how the majority of Americans have as far as vacation and/or personal time as well as sick time. Your perspective is kind of skewed and ignorant. We work hard and tend to understand what is offered by the company policy. We don't need to be pampered by the state because we aren't as weak as the UK and Europe. But I guess that says it all. UK is a conglomerate and not a few independent nations such as Scotland. Keep bending the knee my friend to whichever overlord keeps you weak and submissive with their handouts.
koolaid glug glug
yeah, right! I bet you don't even have a passport!
@Pippins666 Have had one since '96. Will have my 3rd renewal in a couple years. Been to 17 countries. Anything else you need to know about me?
@@davidconley6267 just wondering how else you managed to obtain such a huge amount of pig ignorant bigotry...no guessing who you voted for in the last presidential election...or can you surprise me there too?