Hi

I am a nurse and my job gives me 4 weeks paid vacation and all the stat holidays (approx 10) all effective immediately. PS I love it here!!

I feel the canadians where I am work hard and play hard. Tomorrow Friday is the beginning of a long weekend here. Already the RV's are hitting the road and making the most of the extra day. But this is the same every weekend in the summer.

As I leave work tomorrow people will say 'what are you doing over the weekend' or 'have a good weekend;' It is automatically thought of that you will be doing something nice.

In the last two weeks I have only had the saturday and sunday off. But I have also been white water rafting, sea-dooing, boating, mountain biking and took half a day to go and do some shopping of course I could have spent the time ironing, cleaning the house and other 'stuff' like that, but that is sooooo boring and so how I use to be when i lived in the UK.

If you base your decision to move on the amount of vacation time you have over here then I would think that Canada is not for you.

I worked in the NHS for 12 years and got used to the 8 weeks annual leave but worked crappy hours in a stressful environment where we were short staffed.

I still get 8 weeks annual leave, work crappy hours in a not-so-stressful environment, and have fewer days off (ie every other weekend) but wouldn't swap it for anything. I am self employed here.

My OH has just started a new job, and 10 days annual leave + bank holidays seem to be the norm. He has to work there 5 years before he is entitled to any more leave. Boxing day isn't a bank holiday here either!

Yes, it's usual for people not to have very much holiday in Toronto. It's even less usual for people to take all the vacation days they are allocated as that tends to be seen as reflecting a lack of commitment to one's job. It's a "career limiting move" as they say here. I've worked with the same core group of people for the past fifteen years and cannot recall any of them taking an actual holiday (two or more consecutive days without checking work email).

The idea of getting out of town on weekends isn't, in my view, reasonable from Toronto. The traffic jams from lunchtime on Friday and, the other way, from lunchtime on Sunday mean that as much time is spent in the car as at one's destination. A light aeroplane parked at the island airport solves the problem but is an expensive option. Lots of people have "cottages", north of the city, something akin to having a static caravan at, say, Canvey Island. It's common for the wife and kids to spend the summer up there while the husband legitimately pleads pressure of work and stays in the city.

That said, if one can work shifts, I think it's possible to achieve the same quality of life in Toronto as one would have in the UK. One of my daughters works shifts and, by heavy swapping of shifts has managed two two-night stays in Algonquin Park this summer as well as a week in Alaska and a week and a half driving the PCH. She's currently in Paris, a trivial trip from the UK but a big deal if you're starting from here.

Some people can do it. However, I think people who emigrate to Canada at an age when their parents are still alive would do well to forget the idea of holidays. The few days off that one gets will be spent on domestic trips to the UK. If you can spend a night on Dartmoor or a weekend on the continent as a sidetrip to a wedding or funeral you're doing well. Not as well as if you'd stayed home but well for someone living here.

Excellent point.

When I was at Telus I got 15 days vacation plus 2 "balance" days. The "balance" days were something to do with work/life apparently!? I asssumed they were the days where my hangovers were particulary nasty and I needed a day to regain my balance.

One thing that I did notice was despite having less holidays lot's of people who weren't customer facing would shoot off early on Fridays in the summer to play golf or head to their cottages. This did not seem frowned upon and infact you would see management sneaking off the earliest.

When I worked as an employee I had 3 weeks + stats + Christmas to New Year shutdown. I never got around to taking my full allowance. Many people didn't and took payment instead.

In the woodworking industry 2 weeks (rising to three after 5 years service) is the norm in BC. No one seems to be too bothered and it was never something that came up when discussing terms and conditions. However, to make it work the employer has to be flexible. For instance, if someone needs some time off during the day to make an appointment they don't use vacation, just make up their hours. Also, many employers offer a choice of working patterns: 5 x 8 hour days or 4 x 10 hour days.

During the summer people do tend to make maximum use of their weekends. Someone working a 4 x 10 hour pattern can work Monday to Thursday this week, go away on Thursday evening and have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday (sat holiday) and Tuesday at the cottage / campground without using any vacation time.

8 weeks is generous even by UK standards.

There is a completely different culture around surrounding time off here. Initially to start leave tends to be lower and you have to have time in with your employer to get anything decent.

It's taken me 10 years to get to 5 weeks leave, although I do get an extra 2 weeks a year for being on call and all overtime can be converted to additional leave. I can also carry over leave from year to year. I presently have close to 4 months of leave i have accumulated over the past 10 years. We get 10 stat (bank) holidays in BC, although it varies from province to province.

I do find a lot more give a take here. Around the holidays we were told to take off the days in between the stats and many other times told to take an extra day off or come in late etc. I also get unlimited sick days.

There will a lot of variance between companies - although to start I wouldn't expect much more than 2 - 3 weeks, plus stats.

I find this also. Many times I've be allowed to be flexible with my shift for appointments of kind and another. We have a single father on our unit who never works the same it hours it seems - the force has bent over backwards to accommodate him.

I too work a 4 day week - as do many other people.

edit - I had to go to the uk for a funeral for a family member - I got a week of paid bereavement leave

I get 24 days in total (hols + days with other names that are basically hols) - this is down from 30 in the UK. I only get this many because my length of service was carried over from the UK, new starters get 15 which I think is derisory.

If you think it's bad here, don't go to the US!

This topic has been an eye-opener and reminds me I should complain less about my job. (FYI, not being sarcastic). I've been in Toronto since 1987 working in merchant banking and I.T. and have always had a minimum of three weeks and floaters which parked up against a bank holiday can stretch things out to five weeks. Floaters are days provided by the company to make a three day weekend into a four day weekend.

Plus, we do get Boxing Day and 1/2 day Christmas eve. Plus, I traded in a 60 train journey with British Rail for a 20 minute car journey to work and the right to work remotely when I feel like it.

Plus, I'm working from home as I write this. Working from home greatly reduces stress for me and makes life a lot more pleasant. Our issue with long distance travel is cost not time.

Oh - I know it's normal. It still sucks tho, and just cos it sucks more in the US doesn't make it suck less here. I'm not actually complaining though cos I knew what the holiday culture was before I came here and also because it doesn't affect me so much (I'm selfish like that)

Sounds much like my life in the UK working in central London and exactly why we moved to New Brunswick.

I have a 15 minute commute on a good day and a 20 minute one on a bad day.

Every weekend tends to feel like a long weekend because I can mow the lawn etc in the week evenings.

I get 15days a year and I can carry over any I dont use (last year I carried over 8 because I worked all summer). This year I will use them all.

If I work in the office until 6pm I will probably be the last one in the building If I leave Fredericton at 5:30pm I have missed the rush to get out of the car park.

I dont think I will ever work in a big city again. But we sacrifice some of the big city amenities, less shopping choice<darn it>, less cinemas, restaurants, theatres etc . However I feel the work / life balance is worth it

Thank you so much everyone, that has been most helpful!

x

I swapped 8 weeks in the UK for 4 weeks + stat days. The way the rota works I do get a block of 5/6 or 7 days of every 3 months which makes it feel like more time off. Thats working as a community nurse.