Bermudashorts

There is a statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks leave including bank holidays in UK regardless of seniority level. The minimum is pro rated for part time workers and there is also provision for those with irregular working hours.

I dont remember ever having less than 22 days plus bank holidays during my working life in UK (commencing 1992). It was hard getting used to 20 days in Australia, baffled me that so many had huge accrued balances as they never took time off. I went negative a few times! I don't think I could cope with ten days if we had moved to US.

SultanOfSwing

Lots of people in this thread have said that but one can't go through the immigration process without expecting some kind of cultural adjustment.

I went from 25 days to 5 and I didn't die. I'm on 10, soon to be 15 now and I'm pretty well used to it. We use our weekends more strategically, book holidays around the federal days off. You make it work.

dj6372

That's the major difference, we MAKE the weekends work, living here makes it easier, we don't have to worry about the weekend being ruined by rain! I didn't come here expecting 20+ days vacation.

SultanOfSwing

Yeah, it really isn't too bad.

I suppose I'm lucky because the atmosphere at work is pretty relaxed so it makes the weekdays easier too.

LondonSquirrel

Jealousy is not a very nice thing. There is nothing to stop anyone applying for a job in a university or hospital etc. These kind of perks are what helps recruit the best staff the same as things like free private health insurance and gym membership for private sector jobs. I pay for two of my weeks annual leave, the other five weeks isn't that much greater than the statutory minimum and certainly the norm for office workers to get five weeks plus bank holidays. The closures at Christmas and Easter add only about six extra actual working days on top of public holidays and the College saves money not having to put the heating on etc. And we still get the same amount of work done.

Sheesh what a nasty remark!

Bob

The only downside to that, where I live at least is that so does everyone else within a few hours drive of somewhere fun, so they become miserable places to visit on those weekends.

Anywhere on the coast from the Cape, up through around Portsmouth NH and southern Maine etc. Not just the coast, but any other resort around here.

Really have to fly to get away and those flights aren't cheap over the long holiday weekends. Either that, or you have to fly out of Logan and either spend $60 on a taxi each way or $150 on parking at the airport...I suppose Worcester has some decent flights but you risk not finding your car when you get back.

The missus tries to take a few days off in the middle of the week and head out on the end of the long weekend if we try and do anything, just to be against the grain of traffic on the way out. It's a hassle until the kids are on summer holidays though.

Asg123

As someone said, it used to be 2 weeks in the UK, similar to the US. Perhaps the reason for the change is that there they have the EU, here we don't. People seem to appreciate these benefits of the EU, the odds are certainly heavily in favour of people voting to stay in the EU. I'm just speculating, I don't know if the change in vacation laws actually has to do with the EU. Whatever it is that's caused the change there, we need to have it here too.

LondonSquirrel

Don't think I ever had less than 20 days and I'm 51. Must have been quite a long time ago. My mum, aged 75, tells me people used to have to work on New Years Day. I don't think it's that relevant how it was decades ago, just sayin'

johnwoo

Decades ago, someone like me with no qualifications whatsoever, no GCE's could leave school at 15, could find a good job, and end up with a good income, own their own home and retire comfortable. Totally irrelevant, that the same person today struggles to just get by on Zero hours contract, if they're lucky. Whilst benefits to the poor, job seeker and disabled are cut and other smugly enjoy a generous lifestyle with 10 weeks holiday. An underclass almost rivaling Victorian England. I have heard my generation as the lucky generation. From what I see from the people left behind, we are.

jeepster

Very true. That's what' driving the Trump and Brexit vote, it's the haves vs the have nots. And if you dare disagree with the haves you're called a racist or xenophobe.

LondonSquirrel

People do seem to see life in the past with rose-tinted spectacles. My mum and dad paid 15% interest rates on their mortgage (and no they didn't have a big house and for several years we lived in a council house). We didn't have anything that people nowadays take for granted. Most 'poor' people have 50 inch plasma TVs. We had black and white and no telephone at home until about 1983. Never went on a foreign holiday until I was an adult and could pay for it myself. Only a few toys for Christmas that my parents paid for the rest of the year. only 5% of people went to university. No £599 iPhones that kids expect nowadays and half a toy shop. Yes I was lucky to go to a grammar school, but it went comprehensive in my 3rd year there. Most of our houses (we moved around a lot) had no central heating. If you wanted money you had to go to the bank, no cash machines, no internet banking, no cheap clothes, if you couldn't afford to pay 'normal' prices you went without. Which we did, my mum had one maternity dress when she was expecting my brother. All washing was done in a twin tub which was a lot of work, and we all had cloth nappies not disposables. Nowadays the government encourages people to have a company pension as well as the state pension, but pensioners my mum's age have mostly only the state pension. And there was no Childline and kids didn't go around hitting their parents like I see now because they were scared of them and might get hit if they misbehaved even at school. And in my aunt's youth a woman couldn't get a mortgage unless she was married! No minimum wage, my mum had a clerical job that paid £3.15 an hour back in about 2000. I myself had a Saturday job earning the princely sum of £4.34 a day and I worked all the holidays and saved £1600 to take to university. My dad died of a brain tumour aged 42 and my brother killed himself aged 21, and I had anorexia and went down to about 60 pounds. So I've not led the charmed life that you seem to think I have.

I agree that there are a lot of challenges facing young people these days but please let us not pretend that it was all sweetness and light 'back in the day.'

johnwoo

I'm sorry for anything I've said to that you might find offensive. I really don't feel much like saying any more on the subject.
I've already expressed my views.

Philk

Part of my negotiations for moving over was vacation time - new employees get 10 days, I was on 25 in the UK and got the company to agree to 20 days for me.
Since I moved the company has also been adding extra 'floating holidays' so everyone now has another 3 which takes me up to 23

LondonSquirrel

It's true, according to my mum, it was easy to get a job when she left school at 15. Then again sexual harassment for women was not something you could expect anything to be done about, you generally just had to leave if you couldn't put up with it. You could be sacked just because they didn't like the colour of your hair. Although Mum says you generally didn't care because you could easily walk into another job. But there was no maternity leave. When you were too pregnant to want to carry on working, you left. If you were pregnant and not married, you were in for a tough time and Mum knows people who were disowned by their parents or forced to give up their baby for adoption. My sister even had a snide comment when she was expecting my nephew in 1990 because she wasn't wearing a wedding ring, although she wasn't a single mum. I can honestly say I would not notice whether anyone was wearing a wedding ring or not.

Of course job protection is generally much greater in the UK than in the US, especially in 'right to work' states, and maternity leave is much better. Statutory sick pay is crap though for those unlucky enough to have to rely on just that. I understand however that unemployment benefits is tons better in America, two years at 75% of your last salary, is that right? Here it's something like £75 a week for 9 months, then means tested, so if your spouse works and you've no kids, that's basically it and you better hope you get another job. In America the employer pays toward the unemployment benefits I understand. But maybe redundancy isn't as generous? So swings and roundabouts I suppose.

Asg123

I think it's something like 6 months at 50% of salary. (and maximum I think around $450/week)