Which country do you live in and how much paid time off work do you get?
Which country do you live in and how much paid time off work do you get?
Also, how long do you take a holiday/vacation for?
Which country do you live in and how much paid time off work do you get?
Also, how long do you take a holiday/vacation for?
20 days pto plus around 8 paid holidays that are set days.
Union job, America.
I live in Australia but working remotely for a US tech company.
I usually take 6-8 weeks a year of PTO and for maternity leave I’ll take the 16 weeks paid, and 8 extra weeks unpaid/minimum wage (depending on my spouse’s situation)
USA, self employed so 0 hours PTO but also don't have to deal with an HR department to take time off.
Canada, technically unlimited but I generally take 5-6 weeks
Murica. 10 days given per year. 10 days taken. Use it for last two weeks of the year
The Greatest Country On Earth, Pennsylvania.
40 hours
USA. I accumulate an hour of PTO for every 40 hours I work, up to a maximum of 40 hours a year. I have to use it pretty sparingly.
Denmark: 30 paid days off per year, paid sick leave, some unknown amount of public holidays. Really enjoying this socialist-democratic hellhole.
USA. 3 weeks vacation max out at 4, 1 week sick time, 1 week "personal time". 10 holidays but we are running 24/7 so if you are scheduled to work you get time and a half those days plus 8 hours of extra pay. You get paid out any sick/personal time you don't use but vacation days no longer roll over. I liked saving up 2 years of vacation and fucking off for two months.
Canada, 6 weeks plus 1-2 weeks during xmas closure plus unlimited sick days
USA, tech start-up. "unlimited PTO" and probably about a month's worth per year. Also full WFH but that's because of a medical exemption.
While I'm at my desk, I work extremely hard but don't usually work more than 35ish hours per week as I my brain can't sustain much more.
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.
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.
Poland - 0 as I have trash grey market contract.
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 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.
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.
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).
USA, CA, civil service, IBEW. I'm between 5 and 15 years (different PTO for different service lengths).
15 days vacation, all federal plus 5 floating holidays, and 10 sick days.
It's 10 days vacation between 1 and 5 years, and 20 after 15.
IBEW bud from the other corner of the country! To be fair, I’m not at 5 years yet, but I get 4 float days, 10 vacation, 7 sick days, unsure what it’s like for normal hourly workers but as a shift worker I work any holidays on my schedule. It’s hilariously bad, I only semi-joke when I say I’d like to go on strike from my own union to make it actually work for me.
Oh, and despite working well over 400 hours of overtime, none of that translates into extra vacation time. Yet corporate is flabbergasted at poor retention rates.
Our shift workers have the option to work on holidays for 2.5x. if the observed holiday is on their rdo they get a banked holiday. If they take it off they get normal 1x holiday pay
USA, WA, IBEW. Less than 5 years, but ours doesn't change until 10 years(? I think I need to look this up).
20 days PTO accrual in a year, 2 personal holidays. No sick days.
I believe ours goes up to 28 days/year once at 20years with the company? It takes a lot for us
UK, 25 days annual leave which is the standard minimum plus bank holidays
a few years ago, my friend got a remote IT job in the UK (from canada) and the VERY FIRST THING they started with upon hiring was planning the time off in relation to other people. it was so shocking to us, neither of us nor any of our friends had ever heard of this before. Here, people have so little time off that the employer can just coast on everyone working a little harder while their colleague is away a little bit here n there. But when you have people with 6-12 weeks off every year you do start to need to coordinate.
Standard question for any job I’ve had, it’s a position of strength for the new employee as they have to honour them as the dates were confirmed before they joined. If you wait till you are in the door you may not get them as others might already have them booked.
US - 0
None at all, no sick, no holiday, no federal holiday, absolutely no PTO. If I don't go in I simply don't get paid.
Same and same.
Ontario, Canada.
Employees with less than five years of employment are entitled to two weeks of vacation time after each 12-month vacation entitlement year. Employees with five or more years of employment are entitled to three weeks of vacation time.
If you read the link you will find the employer is allowed to pay out your vacation time as a % of pay. This is very common especially in lower wage sectors. You are then supposed to save up the money yourself to pay yourself for vacation when you take time off. In effect, you don't get any paid vacation.
edit: I'll also add that you have no right to select WHEN you take your vacay. A friend of mine worked in a factory that shut down for 2 weeks in august for maintenance, painting, service the machines etc. So everyone had to take their vacation during that time; no choice. That is unusual but not prohibited.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/vacation
9 public holidays
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/public-holidays
Employees are entitled to up to 3 sick leave days per year once they have worked for an employer for at least 2 consecutive weeks.
This is new since COVID. Which at the time it was introduced, mandated 10 days away from work.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/sick-leave
There are also other kinds of leave like parental, bereavement and such, if you click any links you can see that in the sidebar. Nothing is very lush.
Everything is prorated to a 40 hour work week. Breaks don't count. So if you work 20 hours per week, you are entitled to half of what is specified.
Any employer can offer more than this, of course. Professionals and higher valued workers can get more. Unions or individuals can negotiate. But a lot of people only get the minimum. Or less. Enforcement is minimal. It's the honor system.
There are also exceptions like federal workers (government, airlines etc). And farm workers, who basically have zero rights of any sort.
Also when they say "weeks" they do not include weekends. You could theoretically take 3 weeks off but you are not paid for weekends. If you did it piecemeal you would have in fact 15 days. 3 sets of 5.
Germany.
These are all paid, all working days some 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!
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%E2%80%93Hartley_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.
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!
No, I don't have PTO. Guess.
USA, no paid time off.
But I make enough to take off a few weeks a year anyway.
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.
U.S. (California)
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.
Sweden. 30 days of PTO per year.
I usually do three weeks in summer, two over Christmas and save the rest for random extended weekends when the public holidays align.
Also, I have about 90 days of paid, and 45 barely paid days parental leave left to take out. There was a total of 480 days for me and the Mrs to share in-betweenst ourselves per kid. I took four months off. Plus another 10 daddy-days to use immediately after baby was born.
Canada - Four weeks vacation. Five and a half years with the company.
To explain for those not in Canada... It is usual in Canada for a job to start with a low level of PTO an then add a week every few years that you stay with the company. This usually is capped at 6 weeks.
You can, of course negotiate an amount of PTO when you accept a job. Someone coming into a more senior position wouldn't expect to start with just two weeks of PTO.
Thanks for adding context.
You usually don't get holidays for the first year. After that you start with two weeks. It usually takes much longer to get another week and you might get 4 weeks after 10 years, 15 years in many cases.
Fortunately for me, my bosses respect me and when they couldn't get me the pay bump I wanted they gladly hooked me up with time off instead.
Australia: 20 days PTO by law, 13 public holidays (depends on the state, but no less than 10 which are national), 10 separate days for use when sick or caring for someone who is sick. There's more entitlements for different scenarios but this is pretty much the baseline.
USA. 4 weeks. Gotta love a good union!!!
US, unlimited vacation and PTO and the major holidays off. We’re encouraged to take off a minimum of 1wk per quarter. Definitely unique in the states. I work for an extremely large startup. Don’t know how long this vacation plan will last. lol.
Til it's bought by a VC. 😉
Oh it’s worse than that already. We’re owned by a PE group.
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.
Switzerland, 25 days + bank holidays. + the week between 24.12 to 02.01.
US. 20 vacation days, 6 personal days, 7 paid holidays.
Longest vacation I've taken has been about 10 days not counting weekends.
10 days is our max away from home. We’ve done 14 twice and both times it was just too long.
Canada. 20 days PTO, 5 PEL, 11 holidays
Switzerland - 20 days is the legal limit, but we get 30 with one week around Christmas + New Year's Eve being mandatory.
I also got a special perk where I work 90% but due to a limitation of our system where we enter PTO, every Friday I take off doesn't count against my PTO budget (rather than only every second Friday). I have not told anyone.
Finland - and zero days, since I’m self-employed. On the other hand, I can take a day (or even a week) off whenever I feel like it, and I only need to work about three days a week to cover my living expenses.
At my previous job, I used to get somewhere between 30 to 40 days of paid time off per year. It varied depending on the year and how many public holidays landed on weekdays.
UK here. I get 30 days paid leave a year, and will have 2 or 3 weeks away on vacation throughout the year and use the rest of the days for just chilling.
My employer will literally hassle me to use all the days, and is not happy if I don't take my full entitlement.
UK. 30 days plus Bank Holidays as paid leave. Also, we have a flexible working system where we can work additional hours to accrue up to five days' leave. Longest continuous period I've taken off was three weeks. It's also WFH four days a week.
When I was applying for this job I was offered - and accepted - a job at an American company which paid a few thousand more but didn't do flexi hours or WFH. It actually felt pretty good letting them know I wouldn't be starting and why.
USA
I currently have 80hrs of vacation and 40hrs of sick-time + a floating holiday
Also the major holidays
And a winter shutdown (~one and a half weeks)
USA, I usually take a day or two at a time, either when I'm sick or I have a doctor's appointment.
I get 40 hours of PTO per year and both sick and vacation come from the same pool, sick days count as "points" though and you get 3 points in a 6 month period, exceeding that is termination.
Unpaid time off isn't an option until you run out of PTO.
US - unlimited
but is it really unlimited? At my last job, it was "unlimited with manager's approval", which basically means as long as the manager approves you're good to go, no hard limits, but in practice managers wouldn't approve more than 2-4 weeks (10-20 work days) a year, usually.
There are some things that influence the actual time off:
In the UK, for a university. 26 days + 8 days bank holidays. I've been offered the chance of 'buying' an extra 10 days (salary sacrifice, spread over the year), I might go for it.
USA, 2 weeks/year but they don't expire and I can roll them over if I want to.
I usually vacation for 3 weeks at a time, it's a good amount of time to spend on one place I've never been and see a bunch.
Czechia. I get 20 days off mandated from the state, plus some (12-ish?) public holidays, plus every day I donate blood (that's up to 5 days a year).
My job gives me 5 extra vacation days, and when I'm on sick leave, pays me the full 100 % of my salary.
I take vacations for as long as I need :) But mostly I try to chip away at my supply with one- or two-day vacations, usually around weekends and/or combined with public holidays. I am obligated to take vacation at the end of the year, and I always take 3-4 days for a yearly local metal festival.
Germany
I've been off work for three or four years now. Long Covid is a bitch. The paperwork was monstrous but now me and my wife get paid by a combination of the state's pension, health insurance so my wife gets paid for caring for me and my unable-to-work (can't think of the proper name) insurance.
But usually I'd get 26 to 30 vacation days per year.
In the US. I get all federal holidays plus my birthday and a few extra holidays (like an extra day around new years, Thanksgiving and Christmas) plus I get 25 days of paid vacation but no sick days. In 3.5 years I'll get the maximum of 30 days/year.
Our vacation time is tied to years of service.
1 year = one week 1-5 years = two weeks 5-10 years = three weeks 10-20 years= four weeks 20-25 years = five weeks 25+years = six weeks
Of course by "week" I mean 5 days of vacation.
US
My situation is a little fucked up because I work 12 hour shifts, but PTO is based around 8 hour days because that's what most employees here work and they haven't made any special exemptions for us. These numbers are going to be based around 8 hour days because I don't feel like doing the math
Vacation time- 10 days for new hires, and you get 5 additional days at 5, 13, and 19 years, so assuming I stick around for 19+ years I'll have 25 days. You can carry over up to 15 unused days to the next year
5 personal days, no carryover
Sick days accrue at 1 day per month, so essentially 12, with unlimited carryover,
1 personal holiday
Certain things like perfect attendance, coming in for overtime, etc. can earn you "flex time" which actually is usually awarded in 12 hour increments.
I'm kind of bad at using my PTO. My schedule is kind of wonky and I work less days overall than most people and tend to just slot most of my vacation plans into that. If I plan things right I also only need to take 2 days off to get a whole week, and every other weekend I have a 3 day weekend. I don't tend to take a lot of elaborate vacations, 3 day or less trips are kind of my norm. Every couple years I'll do something a bit more elaborate and take a week or more, but more often my PTO tends to get used for other things besides going on vacation. I have a week coming up that I took off to paint some rooms in my house for example.
I work for a US company but my contract is governed by Canadian and Ontario labour laws. The company offers unlimited time off but that's illegal in Canada so we have unlimited time off minimum four weeks. We take as much time off as we want as long as our job gets done.
Japan gives me 20 days a year, can bank up to 40. Plus public holidays