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Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

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Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#21
I’m assuming the data for Europe is largely correct, but a lot of the per country data doesn’t pass the smell test to me. Afghanistan (35 days), Libya (45), Yemen (46), etc. what percentage of workers there are getting that many paid days off?

Edit - the original source even had the audacity to label Yemen with a “smiley face” since it has the most paid days for the region.

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#22

Why does it say 0 for the US? You have Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July and more? Are they unpaid days off?

Depends on the company. The US maintains no requirements, federal holidays are a suggestion, not a mandate.

A few states inside the US upgrade federal holidays to state holidays to required paid time off. Most don't.

In the US paid holidays are a corporate "tradition" more than a regulated common good.

Even US federal employee holidays vary between agencies and branches of government.

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#23
I dont want to derail the conversation about the article but what's with two separate accounts posting within 5 minutes of each other both going off about America inventing transistors?

I wonder how much vacation time the people who invented the transistor took each year.

Edit: up to three mentions of transistors now. Bizarre

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#24

What is going on in the US is nothing short of shameful.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/employee-benefits/paid-leave-sick... Could be better for sure, but a graph showing the US as having 0 days of paid days off because the federal government doesn't mandate anything is misleading at best. Average US worker after 1 year of employment earns 7 sick days and 11 vacation days. And likely has some state and federal holidays off as well, and could very well qualify for state require…

> earns 7 sick days

Including sick days makes the calculation worse, not better. Sick days typically don't exist in Europe. If you're sick, you obviously just don't go to work. What's the point of infecting the whole office?

On average, workers in Europe take about 2 to 3 weeks off each year due to sickness in addition to their vacation. In fact, if you're sick during vacation, that doesn't count as vacation time, at least in some European countries.

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#25
post #11
post #5

The country that does not, invented more or less every modern technology (transistors, ICs, wifi, microwaves, cellular). Mayhaps there is something to it.

Most of those things were invented by a company granted a government monopoly on communications and not allowed to directly profit off of any of those advances. AT&T threw money at smart people and said, "Do stuff. Then we'll see if we can use it" No one does that anymore.

The big one on the list that wasn't AT&T was microwaves and that was a contractor to Nasa [0] in the heat of the moon race and a similar "Do stuff. Then we'll see if we can use it" mandate.

[0] Defense contractor Raytheon most specifically.

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/employee-benefits/paid-leave-sick... Could be better for sure, but a graph showing the US as having 0 days of paid days off because the federal government doesn't mandate anything is misleading at best. Average US worker after 1 year of employment earns 7 sick days and 11 vacation days. And likely has some state and federal holidays off as well, and could very well qualify for state require…

> earns 7 sick days Including sick days makes the calculation worse, not better. Sick days typically don't exist in Europe. If you're sick, you obviously just don't go to work. What's the point of infecting the whole office? On average, workers in Europe take about 2 to 3 weeks off each year due to sickness in addition to their vacation. In fact, if you're sick during vacation, that doesn't count as vacation time, at…

Can confirm in non-European country. In Dominican Republic they don't count either

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#28

The US has generally higher wages than Europe and lower taxation rates. Those paid days off are not free.

The areas with the highest wages are disproportionately more expensive, and the personal risks forced on both workers and the unemployed are far dangerous. (Esp lack of healthcare.)

Re: Most countries provide between 20 and 40 paid days off

#30
post #10

I guess thinking from first principles probably the ideal is neither government mandating days off nor their behind terribly hard to come by. Better imo would be - if I personally accomplished something meaningful and valuable and 'earned' time, then I am strongly incentivized to take time. Also it taking time will help my health and wellness meaningfully then I should also be incentivized to do so. But that seems im…

From the first principles, I suspect it’s an attitude thing, management-to-individual-contributors relationships. If management treats ICs as equals and tries to form a healthy human-centric culture, you get unlimited PTO. If the management treats ICs as tools to do the work and tries to squeeze maximum performance per dollar out of that biomass, you get sweatshops with zero time off. Incidentally things correlate with ICs replaceability - the more replaceable an individual is, the less reasons to care (see a work-performer as a human with needs and problems and ) business owners have. Plus, the wellbeing of the business is a likely factor - the more breathing space it gets, the more it could afford (unless greed and lack of long-term planning kills everything) to be less financially optimal short-term for long-term prosperity.

Regulations are means of pushing the bottom line back at scale. They should be unnecessary in ideal humane society, but that’s not a thing. I wonder whether there’s a way to shift the culture somehow… but there seems to be no political will for that, because it’s certainly not any popular agenda point.

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