Canada lowest in paid days off in world?

[Cowperson]

Interesting chart of work/life balance showing the average Canadian worker at the bottom of the list globally for the number of paid vacation days and paid public holidays.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/wor...balance/chart/

Cowperson

[REDVAN]

doesn't surprise me one bit. there are a lot of workoholics too, and so many people don't take their full time anyway. I take extra time without pay. vacation is required.

[worth]

holy man, 25-30 paid vacation days in some countries? that's unreal. the max i can get at my work is 15 days.

[FireFly]

That's it! I'm moving to Morocco.

[Bobblehead]

I qualify for 20, but with the schedules on the project I'm working on I don't think I'm going to get 10 of them. Yes, I am allowed to carry them over, but I also have a huge amoung of banked OT. That's the problem with being the only one who knows how to use the obsolete software still in production (the manuals refer to "If you are using Windows 95," *sigh*)

[rubecube]

And still one of the highest in taxes!

[ericschand]

Hang on a sec. I thought the USA had no law requiring any vacation time,
one of the few western countries to not have any law on the book
regarding vacation time?

If so, puts the whole chart in doubt.

ers

[worth]

Fine Print:

*** In the United States, federal law does not mandate pay for time not worked. Vacation policies vary widely, many organisations provide one week of vacation after six months of service, two weeks after one to five years of service and three weeks after five to 10 years of service.

[Knut]

Sweden when i was there had like 6 wks vacation.. with 3 of them paid i think.... no one worked on Friday afternoons either.

[Sylvanfan]

Two years ago when I was looking for a new job one of the things I wanted was three weeks paid vacation and the time off. When I would ask for it, companies would offer to pay me 4 weeks vacation if I'd settle for only getting two weeks in time off as a compromise. Reason being that the other employees can gauge how much time off others get per year, but can't figure out how much you make unless you tell them.

[jamesteterenko]

That chart is very deceptive. They are comparing apples to oranges. If you are putting in the minimum that the law allows, the US should be 0. Putting 10 for Canada after bumping up the US to 15 is really strange. I have not had less than 15 days vacation since I graduated university. I have also not heard of any professional in Canada getting any less than 15 days.

For the countries that have very high days off numbers, I wonder how much it fluctuates. My guess would be that it doesn't fluctuate too much. At least not nearly as much fluctuation as is possible in Canada. I'm at already double the Canada number on the chart, and I know a bunch of people that have more than me.

[Ayrahb]

Originally Posted by FireFly

That's it! I'm moving to Morocco.

[Drunk Skunk]

Minimum 28 days off in Lithuania ... another reason to move to the Old Country.

[jolinar of malkshor]

North America really needs to start looking at giving more vacation to its workers. Business owners complain that it costs to much, but in the long run they loose more to lower productive due to stress, unhappiness and low morale.

Just look what happened 2 years ago when the provincial government was going to make the september long weekend a 4 day holiday to recognize Alberta's 100 year birthday. All the business owers were up in arms saying it would cost them way to much money.

[Jagger]

Originally Posted by worth

holy man, 25-30 paid vacation days in some countries? that's unreal. the max i can get at my work is 15 days.

I got 30 paid days off in England 20 years ago! Canada is way behind the times imo.

edit: Finland really is the place to be. 44 days off per year. Wow. That would be great

[Bobblehead]

I think it would be hard to mandate this sort of thing, simply because many businesses would need to replace those hours lost with additional staff.

It would require some sort of a phase in, and even then current employees would need to realize their wages would need to shrink to pay for any additional labour required to fill in for the lost time, at least initially until the market could adapt.

[zukes]

I get 23 paid days off. I take every one of them and a few "sick" golfing days as well. I would go postal otherwise.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by fotze

To save money why can't the businesses somehow give legislated no-paid days off. A week off is worth far more to the employee that the equivalent pay. Allow the company to dock the small amount per paycheck over the entire year and let you take the week off. Of the employees choice of course.

At my job they allow you to buy up to 5 extra days of vacation per year. I currently get 17 days/year and I bought 5 more days. They also give you more days/year after you've been there for so long.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Jagger

I got 30 paid days off in England 20 years ago! Canada is way behind the times imo.

edit: Finland really is the place to be. 44 days off per year. Wow. That would be great

Globally, it is likely more correct to state that Canada is leading the trend with Finland, etc. likely being forced by economic pressures to catch up through the next decade or so.

Cowperson

[LockedOut]

It would be interesting to see how those numbers correlate with statistics like domestic violence, workplace accidents, etc.