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.
I love paid time off. But the summer when tons other people are off and everything is busy/expensive/hot would be my very last choice.
I’m all about that off season.
We don’t specify when you go on vacation in Europe it’s just 5 weeks of paid time off
Is there a story behind your username?
Same; I’m Scottish, so anything over about 35C will literally kill me. A week’s diving in Malta during October, though? Lovely!
I grew up in the US North, and now live in the US midAtlantic South, and I’ve given up going outside for most of the summer. Getting drenched with sweat in unseasonably cool weather because the humidity is 99% and mosquitoes that come out in full sunlight any time of day and grass with chiggers that want to make me shred off my skin almost the entire year 'round is enough to make me really wish I had the scratch to be a snow-bird.
Agreed, I was on vacation earlier this month for a couple weeks since it was the only time that made sense with my work schedule. It was just brutally expensive to stay anywhere because things were booked up.
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.
Yep - it’s a tired misconception I first encountered working for an American 20 odd years ago.
While it’s true that it’s difficult to get much out of France Spain and especially Italy in august - it’s because it’s holiday season - not because everyone is gone for a whole month
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.
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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.
Like so many things in the minds of Americans, when they think of social benefits in Europe, they think of Sweden.
In Sweden it is actually not unusual to take 4 full weeks off every year in Summer. Especially if you have kids. Can be even 6 weeks for some years if you still got enough parental leave to take. And that is in addition to time off around Christmas, although then maybe not more than 1 1/2 weeks or so.
Parental leave? Lol
If you want to save it all and take a month off then so long as the boss is okay with it
Yeah, most bosses aren’t ok with that.
Where I am now I get two consecutive weeks maxThat’s double the amount of time off I have here in the U.S.
And I only get a week of paid sick days, which I’ve already used up due to an illness which hasn’t even been properly diagnosed yet.
I even have to make up time if I go to the doctor.
In the UK the government mandates that your employer pay you whats called statutory sick pay for up to 28 week should the illness require it, which is a minimum of £109 a week.
In addition, your continued employment by the company is protected and they cannot fire you for being sick.
In reality the company will often support staff members for much longer if needed. That’s just how things are expected to be. I’ve had a member of my team go on very long term sick with leukemia and he was supported by the company for over 4 years while he was in and out of hospital, letting him work part time and from home when he needed to, at his discretion.
Expectations on companies here and the protections offered to worked in regards to thier employment and unfair dismissal situations puts the “land off the free” to shame
Not surprised. I would honestly move there tomorrow (my father was English and I was born before the 1980s cutoff, so I could get citizenship), but I don’t want to abandon my dogs.
Why not take the dogs with you, if that is „all“?
Well, I don’t know UK law, but generally that means putting the dogs in quarantine for months and I don’t want to do that to them.
25 to 30 days of annual leave is unheard of in the US. And it translates to 5-6 weeks, which is well over a month. It’s common in a lot of European countries to take 4 of those weeks off in a single continuous summer break, usually August (some prefer July to avoid the August crowds). Yes, there’s a misconception that everyone in Europe takes August off, it’s ultimately up to each individual how they allocate their days off, but there are companies that do assume everyone will take August off and all but shut down during that month.
I don’t think its a Federal requirement to offer employees any vacation or sick leave in the US. For many office jobs you have to earn leave time over the course of months or years - it’s not unheard of to have zero leave time the first six months of employment.
Paid sick leave, no, but your job is protected by FMLA.
It’s only protected by FMLA after you have worked there for a year, because fuck you I guess.
Do you get paid during your month off?
Of course.
In Finland you get paid 1.5x your normal monthly salary in the month you are in vacation. History of it is that to ensure you continue working after the vacation.
Edit: it is not in the law, it is just something that unions have negotiated
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25 days off is 5 weeks (because days off would only be the work days.) That’s over a month.
Most positions in the US seem to give 10 days of annual leave a year. Some may also include sick pay as well.
It’s even more than 5 weeks if you take days off adjacent to bank holidays. One can easily stretch it to 6+ in many countries.
Same in France.
Cool, I get zero sick days and get paid a lump sum “vacation” bonus every year equivalent to one week’s salary.
I get no real paid time off otherwise
Strike
And the other 33% are either nativists or bootlickers
A lot of people seem to be confused by the “entire month of August off” thing, there is a bit of background to that, namely that factories shut down production in August for 2, sometimes 3 weeks. I’m not sure if this is a general thing, but all the factories that I worked with across Europe were doing this.
Some of it comes from heavy industry, with the time of machinery that you just don’t turn off and on . The big steel makers for example, would only stop the furnace for the summer break (last week of July first week of august). And Christmas. Holiday was mandated at that time - known as the “factory weeks”
A lot of it comes from August being fucking hot, which makes it hard to work. Not everyone is an office worker in an air conditioned environment.
There are industries that do this in the US too, such as car manufacturing. However even then, the plant is shut down for a week or two, and you are required to take your vacation during this period. …. Except of course the people going in to do all the plant maintenance, who are prohibited from vacation during that period
I never pick August to have vacations.
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If you think voting will get you out of this, my american friend, you are wrong. You need a revolution.
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I agree with everything that you just said. But revolutions are not led by a single individual, but by organizing collectivelly. I simplified my reply to your original post, and I apologize for that. What I originally meant was that voting will not change anything. You need radical change. And yes, that will shed blood. But houseless people, minorities, they are already shedding blood. The alternative is just to vote? To go to marches? Protest?
Nah, organization and fight against capital.
I actually got slightly told off last year because I hadn’t taken enough holiday off. I got made to take paid leave.
Can someone from Europe explain how this works? Surely everyone isn’t off for the whole month of August. I’ve been hearing this for as long as I can remember. How do people do anything if everything is closed? Need food… sorry, the market is closed. Need to get somewhere… sorry, the trains aren’t running. Need clean water… sorry, we shut down the treatment plant for holiday.
I always hear about his August thing in Europe and it makes 0 sense. Is this some half-truth people blow up in attempts to manipulate others into getting something that doesn’t actually exist?
German here: I have yet to witness these “European-style” vacations mentioned in the post title.
Most workplaces seem to frown at people taking >2 consecutive weeks of vacation, esp. if they don’t have kids and do it in main travel season / during school holidays. Handing in ~3 weeks of holidays often at least needs some kind of explanation to the team-lead, e.g. “I have school kids who have their summer holidays and we need to keep them busy until school starts again.”
I have yet to see a single company going easy on someone saying “I’ll be off all of August KTHXBYE”.
I work in IT for a major telecom provider in Scandinavia, and almost everyone takes 3 weeks summer vacation, mostly at the same time.
Management recommends taking as much as possible over the summer, as we have a 5-6 week “slow period” when people’s 3 weeks don’t align.
Other than that, it’s common to just take the rest during other school holidays.
We get 6 weeks by default and earn our way up to 7 weeks after 5 years.
Here in England there’s a guy I work with who’s taking six months off soon to go to Thailand. Thing is, we’re working for the local authority and they’re pretty good about holidays and sick pay because the wages aren’t very competitive and they need to retain staff.
German here as well - this hasn’t been an issue in any company I’ve worked so far, all didn’t have an issue with 3+ weeks.
My prior gig, all of our EU people took like 3-4 weeks off at a time. Probably industry-related?
Lol as an American I feel uncomfortable putting in more than 2 consecutive DAYS in a row and I’m salaried, not a service worker or anything. I can’t even imagine having 2 weeks off. I’ve only been able to manage that once in my adult life during one of my transitions to a new company.
Which gets into an entirely separate (though related) issue, where workers with children get benefits and accommodations that childless workers don’t.
Sometimes it’s overt and blatant like in your case, others, it’s more limited to interactions and relationships.
A few jobs ago, I worked in a small office where the owner was good about approving PTO, but didn’t want more than one person in any given dept out at the same time (ridiculous, but that’s how he was).
I planned a vacation of a long weekend one summer and got my PTO approved in like February for this long weekend in June.
Literally 3 weeks before, this lady I worked with tells me that I “need to reschedule my PTO”.
After looking into it, I learn that what’s really going on is that she wanted to take a week long vacation with her kids since they’d be off for the summer, and one of my days overlapped with the week she wanted to take.
I refused, saying that my friends and I had already made arrangements.
And then she blew it up, in the office in front of everyone, and told me how I was being so rude and mean and inconsiderate, that I could go and do things whenever I liked because I didn’t have kids…and that I “just didn’t get it” and could never possibly understand how hard her life was because I didn’t have kids.
I assumed that my boss and other coworkers would see how ridiculous she was, but while they mostly kept quiet, the ones who did speak up actually did think I was being unreasonable for not canceling my vacation to trade with her, seeing my plans as less than hers, just because she had kids.
I learned to get comfortable with coworkers thinking I was an asshole, though, and enjoyed every moment of that getaway.
I work in the automotive industry in the US, but we regularly interact with German suppliers (software and hardware). In my experience, in August especially it seems like half of their office is just out the entire month. I’m sure there’s tons of industries where that isn’t the case, though.
I think it really depends on the place you’re working. My company honestly encourages us to take all of our leave in one chunk, because it’s easier to plan with. At least you should take one week at a time. I personally don’t like it though. I like looking forward to having a few days off every month. Having a whole month off and then working troughout the year is not for me.
Had no idea American’s couldn’t do that 😲 No wonder they don’t travel!
Congress does it. If it’s good enough for the ruling class it should be good enough for the rest of us.
Look you guys can have August. I’ll work it. But I get December 15th to January 15th.
I’m partial to May. More winter vacation just means rain and no sun. I’d rather travel when it’s cool and sunny.
Cool and Sunny… Dies of Indian heatstroke
Who is the remaining 34% that don’t want this? Brown nosing middle management cunts? Pto policies at a ton of companies in America are abhorrent. Just 2 weeks ago, I had a mental breakdown over my workload and had to call in only getting further behind the next day.
“Gee mdot, you could sure use a vacation!”
Ya. No shit. The problem is, I’ve only been here for 6 months and don’t have much pto banked AND if I were to take longer than a day off, I’d be so behind that it wouldn’t even be worth it. Luckily, someone on my team gets back from maternity leave in 2 months. Even then, it’s going to be hard to leave because of my workload and, for the first 2 years I get 10 days of pto per year. That’s it.
“Gee mdot, you should get a new job.”
Ya. No shit. But I just started here 6 months ago, I don’t want to look job hoppy and they compensate me well. Also…as with many Americans, health insurance is tied to our jobs. My insurance is solid and the specialist I see for a chronic health condition is in network. I do not want to change.
Millions of Americans are probably in a similar boat as I am and it sucks. Stuck in a job dealing with shit company “policies” all because they pay me well and give me insurance. They don’t treat me well, though.
Sorry for the rant, clearly I needed to get that out lol.
I am truly sorry that you are stuck in this awful situation. The system (or large parts of it) are designed like this. Keeps people in check. As an European, I find it baffling. Not everything is prefect here, far from it. I’m dealing with chronic health issues myself and I probably wouldn’t survive the US.
There is nothing I can do to help you, but I emphasize with your situation and hope, that you can rest soon!
I appreciate it! My boss is a good dude and is helping me figure it out. It’s his boss that are the bastards. Luckily I have a very supportive partner who told me to just do my best and if they don’t like it, they can fire me and I can take some time off (she does well financially too and we have a solid savings account). I’m in a decent situation but I couldn’t imagine being in this situation and being 1 check away from living on the streets like millions of people are.
Here’s how tired I am: I went to bed at 6pm last night and woke up at 8:30am. I failed to mention I’m also back in college as well so…I’m exhausted.
Probably not what you wanted to hear or see, but this is why managers are there. Exactly why you said the boss of the manager is an ass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnsRU3JJ_rs
With the number of billionaires Wall Street is making, we can afford this
Can I get the month of 2024-2027 off?
