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Why is it that the average employee in the USA gets only a weeks paid leave
?
Does it boil down to some US employees being less efficient and therefore not worth taking care of them by making sure they get a decent break from the grind ?
Or is it that US employers are a touch mean with the time they are prepared to pay for a worker not to be doing his/her job.
The average in my country would be four weeks holiday pay with my own lads on six weeks leave.
Or do American employees prefer not to have paid leave ?
We are a society with screwed up priorities. It isn't lack of productivity, our productivity is very high as a nation.
I just started a new job with only two weeks leave. I've never had less than three to start. It is ridiculous.
Indeed.
Germany/Europe has it right.
People actually become less productive proportionally to the hours they work. I'd say 35 would probably be a smarter amount. A month of pure off-time should be standard
I often start with 3 weeks (roughly) due to my field. So I guess that is a bonus.
With all the young kids I see playing on facebook half the time they are at work, perhaps they've earned 40 hours and 2 weeks vacation.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Where does the data come from? I have been at this job 5 years and currently have 5 weeks on the books, with some carried over since I usually only use more than a week or 10 days. I got two weeks the first year and it increases every other year. Teachers and other school staff get 2+ months off and are paid all year.
I worked for a university for a long time, and the paid leave there began at 3 weeks and worked up to 4 weeks in pretty short order. You could extend your leave by timing it for holiday periods, so for example if you included Christmas & New Year (back when ppl got 2 days off for Xmas), you could get 3 extra paid days off. Or Xmas, New Year and ML King Day.
I don't think anyone should be forced to work all year for only 2 weeks of vacation. It's not healthy, really.
Most decent places you get 1 week paid after being there 6 months, then after a year you get the second week, from year 1-5 you get 2 weeks paid plus usually what they call PTO which is supposed to be your sick days... Then from 5-10 years you get another week, essentially 3 weeks, off 10-15 another week, etc. up to a max of 6 weeks.
however there are many cheap places that increasingly pull the cr*p where you don't get any paid days off til you are there a year... WAY TO burn out your employees! HATE when places do this!! I am suspecting these are the lousier places to work where they suspect that most people won't last more than a year? That is just not a cool thing to do.
Agreed 2 weeks off is not enough, and you are supposed to use that for sick days too
Employers get away with it because they can. That's the current national mindset, or so it seems. Screw the workers, and enrich the corporations to the maximum extent possible.
Most decent places you get 1 week paid after being there 6 months, then after a year you get the second week, from year 1-5 you get 2 weeks paid plus usually what they call PTO which is supposed to be your sick days... Then from 5-10 years you get another week, essentially 3 weeks, off 10-15 another week, etc. up to a max of 6 weeks.
however there are many cheap places that increasingly pull the cr*p where you don't get any paid days off til you are there a year... WAY TO burn out your employees! HATE when places do this!! I am suspecting these are the lousier places to work where they suspect that most people won't last more than a year? That is just not a cool thing to do.
Agreed 2 weeks off is not enough, and you are supposed to use that for sick days too
Actually, places that give two weeks vacation usually have a separate bank of sick days, generally about two weeks' worth.
As a dual US/UK citizen this is one of the rewound why I'll probably move at some point. 11 days annual leave just doesn't cut it when I hear friends and family there getting 25 days. It's totally crazy here. People are not machines.
Actually, places that give two weeks vacation usually have a separate bank of sick days, generally about two weeks' worth.
It used to be like that, but in recent jobs there is only 10 days PTO that you are supposed to use for anything you need: vacation, personal days or sick days. Since there's no law about vacation time, sick time and so on, employers give the least they can get away with. I also agree that's unhealthy.
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