is it correct you only get 2 weeks annual holiday entitlement after the first year of employment?

Depends entirely on the company, I get three weeks. But yes holiday entitlement is often much less than in the UK.

This question is asked regularly on the forum so before anyone else replies can I suggest you look at the Wiki (blue header at top of page) and look at Annual Leave - Canada.

Short answer to your question - yes - in most instances.

Lynne

This has caused a bit of a debate between me and my OH on whether we will apply for PR

Holiday? Holiday entitlement in Canada? You funny guy! I shoot you last! (movie quote - not literally)

This is my husband's situation, he gets 15 days holiday and 3 personal days, which for example can be used to visit your family or a religious holiday.

The personal days have to be approved and a reason given. he had to fight to have just 1 day included as we are going to see his family at the end of the week.

If you all your family are here and are not religious you only 15 days It just makes no sense. Either give 15 or 18 days to everyone not give certain people preferential treatment.

thats just poo, my OH is pulling his face now haha

I guess one could be a nominal rastafarian for the purposes of getting a few days off. Mon.

I've recently been offered a job with 6wks entitlement, and a previous contract I had gave 4wks, plus Christmas. I don't think you should assume anything in particular until you've talked to prospective employers and got an idea about what your line of work usually receives.

Here in Winnipeg the minimum holiday pay is 4%, it can either be paid out every wage period (normally every 2 weeks) or retained by the employer and paid out during the holiday period.

No Sick Pay.

No Maternity Pay.

You can pretty much be sacked at any time and for any reason.

No Redundancy Payment (as such).

Health & Safety is about at UK 1960's level.


Anything above and beyond that is up to the employer and employee to negotiate either collectively or individually.

Unions here are similar to pre-Thatcher UK.

my OH is skilled worker with 2 trades gas engineer , aerospace engineer, this line of work you need more than 15 days a year off , its just put a downer on us applying, but as from previous posts i surppose it depends on the employer.

its also different province by province I think. In ALberta you have to be paid overtime for anything above 40 hours per week, you can also use this as time off in lieu instead of taking the cash, so its possible to build up more holiday.

I don't think the pace and pressure of work here is (in general) quite as intense as in the UK.

The stress levels are not as high.

I hardly ever hear people going on about holidays in the same way that they do in the UK.

A lot of people go camping or to their cabin at the weekends in the summer, and then a cruise or Mexico for a week or two in the Winter. This seems to be enough for most people.

In Manitoba overtime is paid at 1.5x after 8 hours in a day, or 80 hours over 2 weeks. The 4% is paid on overtime too.

But you also need to take into consideration your potential position within the company
Many will be told 2 weeks or sod off
Other will be told yes to 4 weeks only to find it adjusted in their pay packets

Yes I got 4 weeks but told my employers I wasn’t getting on a plane for anything less, and as they were prepared to pay all my moving costs, relocation, visa’s and PR. I think that’s a little more of an exception than most will get

To get 6 weeks in most Canadian companies as a full time employee you’d need to be at or around Vice President level
The only other people I know that get that size of holiday are some of our hourly paid contractors, and yes they don’t get paid holiday