Also, how long do you take a holiday/vacation for?
Ireland… 25 days PTO which is standard, minimum is 20 days. Plus public holidays, around 9 or so.
7 days sick leave at full pay, minimum is 5 days paid by gov at standard rate so not matched to your wages.
Usually take a week off on holiday, a few days in a row for school breaks, otherwise random days here and there for stuff.
Switzerland, 35 days of vacation but that is just the company I work for, usually it is 20-25 days. Also an additional 7 days of national and communal holidays.
I usually go on short vacations, 3-7 days.
Also Switzerland here, adding some more info:
The minimum by law is 20 days in general, 25 days for people under 20 years of age. But getting 25 days independent of age is pretty standard at least for office jobs. At my workplace I get 25, people over 50 years of age get 5 days extra.
Also by law two weeks of vacation are to be taken en bloc., so technically that’s not allowed hubobes ;-) but I have not yet heard of any enforcement of this for smaller places. I have a friend who works for a bank, they are apparently very strict in forcing their employees to take two weeks en bloc each year.
Some collective employment agreements for industrial sectors mandate 25 days and mandate an increase for people over 50, but I don’t know for which sectors.
Ah and as for sick days, by law 3 weeks in your first year, and longer later. There are a few scales for the exact increase over time, but just as an example the one from Basel is 2 months starting in your second year, 3 months starting year 4, 4 months starting year 11.
Unless your contract has an insurance for sickness, which work a little differently, there it’s like 80% of your salary for 720 days within 900 days. With various little details, like nothing for the first 3 days, or burden of proof from day x, or sometimes 100% instead of 80%. Depends on the insurance, but it has to be good enough to be considered equal to the above mentioned minima by law.
20 discretionary, 12 set public, unlimited negotiable, 10 sick days. New Zealand.
Denmark: 30 paid days off per year, paid sick leave, some unknown amount of public holidays. Really enjoying this socialist-democratic hellhole.
Canada. Union. IT. Mixed Gov/corp contract.
100% WFH (anywhere, but within the country if you’re on the gov stuff)
22 holiday-days a year. But given the 9x9 fortnight means an extra day off within the paycheque, timed around stats it means 7 weeks.
Generous supplemental medical and dental and vision plan, workday ends precisely at 4:39 and no one expects you to stay a millisecond after; but we stay to either finish or mothball a task so it’s an easier pickup. Evenings and holidays are fucking sacred and you won’t get contacted unless it’s a break-glass all-hands event.
The job is too much fucking Ansible and not enough real work, but I joined because I know the staff and it’s a really great and cohesive team. New openings only when someone retires, and with luck I could end up sailing the world on half pay for life like the guy whose seat at I took over.
Spain:
12 national holidays.
29 vacation days.
4 sick days without a doctor signed medical leave. As many as I need with a medical leave.
Midwest US at a large nonprofit with ~10% union workers, ~7 hours PTO accrued per 2 week pay period adds up to just over 184 hours or 23 days, and another 14 holidays. PTO accrued was tiny until 5 years seniority, currently at 13 years and I think it caps at 8@20.
I usually take off as much as I can, about a month per year spread out by 1-2 week stretches for a vacation or just to take care of personal work or projects, moves, family stuff, etc.
No, I don’t have PTO. Guess.
UK, 25 days as standard (not including paid bank holidays) plus my employer has the option to buy/sell up to 5 days so I usually buy 5 extra. Also, if you have left over holiday days, you can carry over 5 to the next financial year.
Additionally, the standard legal of 9 months maternity leave.
Also, unlimited paid sick days providing you don’t take the piss; longer than 3 days you should ask for a note from the GP. Longer than 2 weeks you should arrange a meeting to discuss the situation and what (if any) adjustments can be made.
I will also point out that mental conditions must be treated the same as physical conditions so if you need to take a mental health day then you can.
Also my job is very flexible about working arrangements.
The standard is hybrid working, 2 out of 5 days in the office. But depending on what your job is you could be fully WFH or full-time in the office.
If you feel you can only work part-time and your manager agrees then you can.
And the contracted hours are 37.5 per week and flexible start so you must be available between the core hours of 10am to 12pm and from 2pm to 4pm, and as it’s the UK Fridays you can finish at 12. Providing you’ve logged enough hours for the week, if you want to finish early you can or take a longer lunch break to run an errand.
Oh and the cherry on top is the company tries to match annual pay rises with inflation and give a very good reason if they can’t fully match it. That’s not very common in the UK and one of the main reasons, aside from the fact that it’s a nice place to work, why I’ve stayed with them because I don’t feel pressured to move jobs to stop my pay getting eroded by inflation.
Sounds really good!
U.S. (California)
- unlimited vacation time (my boss very much lets me use it too)
- 40 “sick” hours a year
- “ bereavement leave “ (death in family)
- 12 holidays
I will admit I am lucky for being in the US. It most likely helps that I work for one of those evil Silicon Valley tech companies.
I have 4 week of vacation per year can’t move them. Boss is pretty chill so he give us 2 extra. They are not paid vacation, but i get canada EI for those.
We also have 13 (14?) holiday These are paid by money taken from my salary each week( ± 15%) and given back twice year a in a lump sum (btw 3k-5k depending on the hours you worked) a month before our 2 week mandated vacation.
I’m also permanently on the canada EI. I just went and look it up, i could go 34 week without working (minus the 4 mandatory vacation week) and they would pay me 668$/ week, but i have to stay in canada to get that.
Germany.
- 30 vacation days.
- 16 public holidays.
- Unlimited sick days (6 weeks paid by employer, the rest by the health insurance, at a lower rate)
These are all paid,
all working dayssome public holidays may fall on the weekend.I started this year with 9 vacation days from last year, I had to take them before the end of March, so I just randomly took a couple of weeks in Feb and Mar.
I usually align my vacation days with my kids school holidays, but I take 2-3 weeks continuously in the summer, usually late August.
It’s a bit misleading to count the public holidays which are always on a Sunday. The normal maximum you can get with days that can fall on a weekday is 14 in the city of Augsburg.
And the number of sick days is not unlimited. The cause for the illness/injury must not be your fault. And then it’s limited to six continuous weeks for the same cause. It’s a bit more complex, but the gist is that it’s not unlimited.
It’s not limited to 6 weeks, you just need a doctor to tell your company you need longer (and your compensation is lowered iirc). Someone who gets run over by a lorry and has to stay in hospital for months doesn’t lose their job, like they would in the US.
Public holidays vary per Bundesland. Berlin has the fewest!
The part about not losing your job is true. The six weeks are mandated by law, it’s how long your employer has to pay your full salary. After that your health insurance will pick up the bill, paying “Krankengeld”. This is limited to 78 weeks within a three year span. Krankengeld is limited to 70% of your income before taxes.
Brazil.
30 days + a lot of holidays.
At least 2 years for sickness if I’m not mistaken.I might be wrong, you probably only get 20 in the way leave days are counted outside of Brazil. In most other countries days off don’t count weekends, so a month of holidays is 20 days off.
Every single company I worked in Brazil gave a one month holiday that you could split at most in two, i.e. the minimum holiday you could take was 2 weeks. Whereas here in Europe every company I worked for gave me some number of days that you can take like you want, e.g. there’s a public holiday on Friday? Take the next Monday for very an extended weekend, or use 4 days to have a 9 day holiday.
It’s 30 days, but weekends count. Recently the law was amended to disallow scheduling vacations to start on a Friday because of that. It can be taken in full, or 15+15, or 10+20, or 10+10+10.
You’re missing my point, when people in Europe say they get 30 days they mean 30 “actual days where they were supposed to be working” off, not counting weekends. So a month is only really 20 days. That was one thing that caught me by surprise when I moved here, and it makes a difference when comparing across different countries, because they can’t tell you how many days off using your numbering because it depends on when they take their days off, e.g. there’s a public holiday on Monday, so you take Tuesday -Friday off (which only uses 4 days) but you have 9 consecutive days off (from Saturday to the Sunday after the first one). But it’s easy to convert your 30 days into working days, you essentially divide by 7/5, and you get that you only have approximately 21 days (where you should be working) off a year.
US, I just got to offer stage with a company and the PTO was 10 days… I’m originally from the UK, and previously worked with startups from other countries, so this is shocking to me. More infuriating was the response from my friend group when I complained about it. “Yeah that’s pretty standard” and I’m like “ok but it’s also shit?”
There’s been a continuous movement in the US to reduce workers rights since the 70’s. I offer 10 sick (mandatory by oregon) and 10 vacation, and it’s considered generous. I also pay full health care, which is considered ridiculously good.
1947 marked a major turning point for workers rights in the US when they outlawed solidarity between unions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft–Hartley_Act
The US and France currently both have around 10% union workforce, France is a million times more effective at striking because unions strike together & nonunion workers don’t cross strike lines, coordinated and targeted.
Germany 30 days
Plus basically unlimited sick days
Somewhat true. After six weeks you will get paid by the health insurance (around 70% of your paycheck).
