In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
In Switzerland, on the other hand, we have turned down an additional two weeks of vacation with a majority of 67 % in 2012. Which leaves us with a meager 4 weeks.
34% of Americans responded “grind my body into the ground, capitalism daddy”
I’ve worked in companies with a presence in various European countries over my career. Whether or not everyone takes Summer leave at the same time very much depends on the company, and the country. I specifically remember working with a Finnish contractor firm who planned to have no billable time available at all in August, from anyone. But our offices in France and elsewhere never fully shut down in August, they were just very lightly staffed. Everyone took some multi-week summer holiday, just not the whole place at once.
It’s not just summer leave, either. There are people all over the world having kids and going out on maternity (or even paternity!) leave for months at a time. When my wife and I had our kids in the US, I didn’t get any extra paternity leave, and just used saved-up PTO. I particularly remember that my wife had to stay in the hospital for a bit after my first kid was born, so the two weeks I had saved up flew by in a flash. I recall my boss strongly encouraging me to dial in to a conference call on that last PTO day, and when I did his boss lashed into me for taking so much time off. I started sending out resumes shortly after.
On the other hand, when the Europeans I worked with later got their summer or parental leave, their Project Managers just dealt with it, and if it meant their schedules had to slip, they slipped, no temper tantrums required. And I think that is the key difference. American bosses and PMs are much more likely to get away with assigning blame for schedule slips downward, perhaps because not as many people are unionized.
Depending on the country, there aren’t that many people in unions. Most countries in the EU (not Europe in general) have laws that protect the workers better than workers in the USA. The result is a different work culture.
I don’t think capitalism would ever allow less than 365 days of work a year in many companies. People at the top only see one thing, and it’s money incase it wasn’t obvious. So less production and less money at face value are not something they would entertain.
I don’t think it is capitalism that is causing that. It is the idea of maximising shareholder value that the American economist Milton Freedman injected into the minds of political and corporate America.
I live in a capitalist country with, in law codified, employee protections including a minimum of paid time off. In addition to that, a strong union that keeps companies in check.
Capitalism works if the rules balance the power of the workers and the capitalist accordingly. But Freedman had other ideas and those are bad for everyone except a few rich guys.
The problematic thing is that the capital has the high ground in capitalism… Therefore it always tries to get those pesky rules removed by just threatening politicians through taking away jobs and industry to other countries with lesser worker rights for example.
I don’t agree ‘it has the high ground’. It is given it the high ground. Capitalism is all about high risk that can lead to high reward. If the rules are changed to low risk will always result in high reward for a few individuals, you end up in a system like this.
However, the system only works when the democratic systems are sound, and let’s be frank here, the democratic systems of the USA are nowhere near sound. The fact that, what you rightly addressed in your post, capital has more influence in politics than votes have, is a red flag.
So, don’t blame capitalism if it is your political system that is at fault. Because if you don’t fix that, no other economic system will function accordingly.
As I said there is no sound political system under capitalism.
The US company I work for offers unlimited vacation whch is a means for a company to avoid the financial liability of an entitlement to leave. That is illegal in Canada so for Candian employees we have unlimited vacation with a minimum of four weeks.
In Europe, vacations are paid time off. That wouldn’t work with unlimited days.
I know lots of us people with “unlimited time off” type contracts. No one ever takes more than a week because they are afraid that their bosses wouldnt like it.
My company has this and just about everyone I work with utilizes the unlimited time off. Most people land in the 5-6 weeks of vacation a year + sick + personal business + holidays.
There are the few who make work their hobby too, but you can’t do anything for those people IMO
What is the difference to vacation and personal days?
Attending funerals, births etc aren’t really holidays
Exactly, we get days off for this on top
They have dropped that “take a month off” thing like it’s some crazy regular thing that happens.
I don’t know about the rest of Europe, but in the UK you normally get 25 to 30 days of Annual Leave, companies often give extra days for long term or exceptional service, some have salary sacrifice options to buy more. Where I work you can even win some in charity raffles. The expectation is that you book them in advance with your boss when you want to use them.
If you want to save it all and take a month off then so long as the boss is okay with it, then off you go. But you won’t have any leave days for the rest of the year.
Yeah, I’m also from the UK and not sure where tf this “August off” thing is from, whether it’s something other European countries do.
People usually take 1-2 weeks off at a time for a holiday then the odd day here and there, a month is ridiculous.
I was gonna say that you’d burn out if you used up an entire month at once, but I guess Americans would be used to that kind of shit anyway.
Here in Germany taking 3 consecutive weeks off is pretty normal, for me that’s also the maximum that I can take off in a row without jumping through additional administrative hoops. A whole month isn’t normal, but it could certainly be arranged
Same, we have to cover about 4 weeks of closed child care and 6 weeks of closed schools. So we take a bunch of our 30 days and turn them into a 3 week stay somewhere.
