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Vacation Policies Around The World

Published: Mar 31, 2009

 Workplace Issues       
America: Land of the free, home of the brave, country with the fewest vacation days.

Compared to almost every other country, Americans work longer and harder and vacation the least. But before you get bent out of shape about the inhumane ways of U.S. employers, know this: Your boss isn't obligated to give you any vacation time. Why? Because the U.S. is one of the very few industrialized countries where the government doesn't regulate benefits in the private work sector.

Americans work two weeks longer than the work-till-you-drop Japanese, and two months longer than the Germans, who sometimes receive up to 15 weeks paid vacation each year, according to the Hay Group, a human resource consulting firm.

The methods for determining vacation time in Europe and the U.S. are distinctly different. American employers typically base vacation time on length of service, while vacation time is normally mandated by government agencies in Europe, according to the global human resource consulting firm Hewitt Associates.

On average, European employees get four weeks of vacation. It would take the typical American employee 15 years or longer to attain the same vacation privileges, says Ann Leeds, a Hewitt consultant who specializes in global benefit practices. And as job-hopping becomes more common, fewer Americans ever qualify for such extended vacations. To add insult to injury (at least for leisure-deprived Americans), employers in certain European countries are required to provide a cash "vacation bonus," equal to one-half to one month's pay.

The numbers

Here's the lowdown on how many vacation days the rest of the world enjoys.

According to Hewitt Associates, the country with the most vacation days is Denmark with 31, followed closely by Austria and Finland at 30 days. France and Norway are at 25 days, Germany at 24 days, Belgium, Ireland, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland each at 20 days. Non-European countries measured include Brazil at 22 days, Australia at 20 days and Colombia and New Zealand each at 15 days. The U.S. is second from the bottom with 10 days, tied with both Canada and Japan. Only Mexico, with a piddly six days, offers employees less vacation time. ~

Uncle Sam meets Uncle Scrooge

If U.S. vacation day allotments are at the discretion of employers, how did they become so uniformly unsatisfactory? It's something called "competitive practice," says Leeds. American companies mimic each others' vacation policies to remain competitive in the market for top talent, making the standard one to two weeks paid vacation a survival tactic, offered begrudgingly by employers.

Thanks to this method, U.S. employees receive an average of 9.6 paid vacation days after one year of service, 11.5 after two years, 13.8 after three years and 16.9 after five years, according to an employee benefits survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Americans don't know how to relax

Although our self-imposed "all work, no play" attitude doesn't necessarily make us dull, it does make us tired, cranky and overworked. For many of today's worker bees, the typical vacation is like a busman's holiday, on speed. American workers are wage warriors who work when they relax. With cellphone, laptop, pager, and email at the ready, there's no such thing as a vacation anymore.

When vacations are taken in the definitive sense, the trend is to take shorter mini-vacations or to cram a would-be leisurely trip into several days. Many settle for long weekends and "pseudo-vacations" that involve such restful activities as visiting relatives or fixing things around the house. Or there are always the vacations that mean working from home instead of the office, using such long-distance communication devices as e-mail, cell phones and pagers.

Too busy to take a vacation?

Despite the relatively small amount of vacation time, approximately 20 percent of Americans don't take the time they're entitled to, says one employee benefits expert.. Many feel guilty asking for a vacation at all.

But Americans are beginning to rebel. The past decade has spawned a new phenomenon called "entitlement mentality," which is merely a fancy way of saying that workers take sick days even when they're not sick. They may "call in" sick, but really they have personal obligations, a sick child or relative to attend to, or simply need a day to chill out. passive-aggressive entitlement backlash is American workers way of saying, "We're sick and tired and we're not going to take it anymore!"

Entitlement mentality is proof that Americans need more time off. And Joe Robinson, the man behind the singular Work to Live campaign, wants to help us get that time. Robinson, who believes American workers have "vacation deficit disorder," is rallying to get Congress to amend the fair labor standards act so that every American who has worked at a job for at least a year will get three weeks of paid leave, increasing to four weeks after three years of service. ~But at least one person thinks the quest for more vacation time is misguided. Edward L. Hudgins from CATO, a libertarian public policy research foundation, says the Work to Live campaign overlooks some very important facts. The average unemployment rate for Europe is 10.1 percent compared to America's 4.1 percent - and European workers tend to be unemployed for nearly a year compared with only three to four months for Americans.

He also explains that Europe's industry output is dreadful when compared with the U.S. -- the European gross domestic product has grown 2.4 percent compared to America's 5 percent, over the past five years -- and believes their six-week vacation mandate is partly to blame. "When governments force businesses to pay workers to be idle beyond what is justified by the businesses' productivity, less wealth is produced, more capital is consumed and the result will be lower job-creation rates, lower real pay, or both," says Hudgins.

Reversal of fortune

Maybe there's hope yet. Many political writers and pundits have commented on how the recent changing of the POTUS guards might impact America's work culture. Clinton was seen as a frenetic workaholic, taking his first vacation in office only after he learned of White House attorney and pal Vincent Foster's death. Dubya, on the other hand, who took two-hour midday breaks to exercise, play video games or nap during his governorship, will slow us down to match the 33 r.p.m. of his favorite country tunes.

Europeans might be meeting Americans halfway. Spain, for example, is steadily dispensing with siestas -- a centuries-old custom -- during the workweek. Either way, both sides of the Atlantic seem to be influencing each other's vacation practices. While certain European countries are curtailing their lenient policies, many American's are clamoring for vast, fundamental changes here at home, to more closely mirror Europe's.

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