Hi
I've heard you don't get much annual leave (vacation!) in canada. can you let me know how many days you start off with. I know it increases with time.. but dont want to have to wait 10 years for a good amount of days!!

Do you find it's ok not having so much leave. Here i have 25 days and my OH 20 days. I don't know how we'd cut down to 10/15 days!

Canada is meant to have a good work/life balance but i feel good vacation is what gives you a good balance too. what do you think?

also, is it true that alot of people use their entitlied sick leave days as vacation too?

thanks!

The minimum is 10 days standard! I was on 25 plus bank holidays & was a bit scared about the old lack of vacation time, especially with all the people that want to come & visit me! But you can negotiate with your employers, when I got my job offer they couldn't give me the salary I asked for but have started me on 3 weeks hols, which is better than nothing! So where as we get ours as standard you can haggle for more holidays with the Canadians

The company I was with you had to build up even 1 days holiday from the time you started. I think you earnt a week after six months or something daft like that. I can't understand why people don't get more holiday in Canada. It's not America after all!

Yes people do use sick days although you won't get many of those either. My company it was only 5 days sick leave. I've known a few people taking a week off for 'stress leave' though so there's a new one you could try!

I think it's tough just having 2 weeks when you want to see your family or have them visit.

yep i agree! esp if its not something you are used to. plus if you have moved from UK it must be tought finding time to visit UK/have people visit, as you say.

It is a ridiculous amount of leave when you compare it to what you get in UK or even australia...

Someone mentioned they got 15 days sick leave, but maybe that was with the Govt.. 5 days is not great either!!!

I think I'm going to ask for 5 extra days unpaid because my family now live in Australia, and my friends and extended family are in UK which makes it doubly difficult! I don't like to think I wouldn't see the UK people again because I would be using up my 2 weeks every year to go to Oz.

Still, I guess we choose to move away, and we choose to move somewhere with crappy leave, so it's just something we have to deal with.

yep its a choice i guess. and i am sure there are many other benefits with living there even if not the annnual leave!

but i am trying to take this all into consideration before i leave this country as i need to check out the things that are important to me.

is it quite easy to get un-paid leave then? i guess its not so bad in that case..

I think it's going to depend on your company, your boss and the industry you are in but it is certainly a possibility.

I think in a lot of companies you will work your way up to 3 weeks leave too so it's not quite as bad as it looks!

My first job in Canada I got 10 days holiday in the first year, but had to work 6 months before I was allowed any time off. I then worked for the federal govt and got 16 days annual leave. Must say it is a shock to go from 6 weeks annual leave down to 2 weeks. We tended to take long weekends off to try and get some holiday. We would save up our holidays for 2 years before we went away say to England for 3 week holiday.
Nice to return to the UK and I got 5.5 weeks holiday in my first job back.

Started on 10, now on 15.

Its a down side to Canada, but not a deal breaker as life is less stressfull for me, so I dont want or need long holidays. Plus I enjoy my job.

Unpaid leave is not always an option. Many employers refuse due to the disruption it causes, and the cost to the business in increased overtime or temps to cover for you, plus if they let you, then they have to let everyone take it, so you can multiply that overtime cover expense many times. Dont count on getting unpaid leave for anything other than exceptional circumstances.

If you dont like the idea, consider being self employed or working on a contract or consultancy basis.

hi!
judging by your comments, i strongly advise you to weigh up your options, friend, before making the jump to canada.
take it from me, if you are feeling so strong now as rgds holidays, you will not like working life one little bit over there, i can assure you!
i speak from experience as i worked there and just did not click with the sort of work environment they have there--to me it just felt like work, work, work and hardly any play!
and i was not doing a manual job either!
thats one reason why i moved back and would not want to work for an employer there again--i would rather use my skills to run a business or something.

wow thanks for this - this is very very useful, as I hadn't heard this about Canada before. I was always given the impressiong that they have a good work/life balance. is this not the case then?

did you have long hours when you were there also? i am sure it depends on the job, ur salary and position etc. but yes as you can probably tell from my previous posts work/life balance is VERY important to me - more than money etc. so i would want that.

my relatives in Canada seem to have very good hours and to even have friday afternoon's off generally?

thanks alot!

Exactly. Both the companies I have worked for here have had a good balance, although my current one is a lot more flexible.

I expect your relatives are doing something similar to what happens in our scarbourough plant, where during the summer a lot of people start earlier in the morning, but take friday afternoons off.

Work / life balance is the same the world over, there are good employers and bad ones. If you let your employer screw you, they will.

With all due respect to Julius, he worked for one employer here AFAIK, so its a bit rash to tar all canadian employers with that brush. But maybe he has a point, you are unlikely to find yourself down the pub at lunchtime with your collegues here, but they might invite you to a BBQ at home.

It must surely depend on who you work for? I know Whistler might be an exception, but there quite a few companies in Whistler that understand work/life balance (rather work/snow balance!) and let you work flexi hours so you can go skiing or snowboarding before work or in your lunch break! These are the office jobs I'm referring to, not baristas and lifties etc.

I can understand big city companies are going to be much more anal about these things though. Whistler is probably quite an exception to the rule.

Ok I'll be quiet now.

Well, my experience of the not-for profit sector in Canada: 3 weeks holiday immediately (plus a week off between Xmas and New year). In another year (so 2 years employment) I'll have 4 weeks plus the extra. And 15 days sick leave/unlimited flex time. Mind you, all that is to compensate for lower wages, a deal I'm glad to take right now...

On the job offer my husband has got says he will get 2 weeks hol, from reading the posts on here this seems about the norm. We are not too bothered with this as he hardly has time off over in the UK, with him being self emp here, if he doesnt work he doesnt get paid so only has time off if vitally needed... and as he will be with an employer in canada his hols will be paid.
I think people will be visiting us in Canada rather than us coming to UK and most of them have already said things like when they come over they could hire their own car do their own thing in the day, if we are at work and spend evenings and weekends with us if needed.
As we are already used to my hubbie not having much hols and they are unpaid when he does I dont think this will affect us much.