Hotscot

My teacher wife often gets accused of having long vacation time whereas in reality it means there's two months in the summer where she doesn't receive a paycheck.

Pulaski

I don't envy teachers at all, in either the US or the UK, but I admire the good ones enormously. They get ¢räp money and have a ¢räppy job to do. The long vacations are no compensation for the ¢räp money.

FWIW My mother was a high school teacher, who loved her job, and got excellent (above expectations) exam results from average ability pupils, and worked five years past retirement, but I never wanted her job.

scrubbedexpat091

We have government mandated vacation here in BC, so technically everyone gets it if you stay with the same company more then 1 year.

Less then 1 year employment 0

1-4 years 2 weeks paid at 4% of your salary.

5+ years 3 weeks paid at 6% of your salary.

Companies are free to provide more time if they so desire, this is just the minimum.

I usually don't take the time off, and just get the pay paid out at the end of the year for a Christmas bonus of sort, can't afford to go anywhere, so why take the time off to sit around the house bored.....may as well collect the extra money at Christmas time.

Holiday's off all depend on your job and industry, we have 10 stat holidays in BC, if you work in a bank or government you get all 10 off most likely, but if you work in say hotels, retail, and service oriented jobs, chances are you work most if not all of them, but they are paid holidays so extra money.

AmerLisa

So she doesn't get paid year round? In the district I work in, teachers are paid through the whole year, their usual pay is cut shorter so they have the same amount for 12 months.

Btw, I receive two weeks paid vacation per year, that's 14 days (shy your 15+) and I'm not free to take it whenever I want. I would imagine it would be the very same in the UK.

Sally Redux

https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitleme...ts/entitlement

Hotscot

She used to get paid year round but to save paperwork the district changed the processing.

Gozit

That's v. short for UK/Europe. 4 weeks plus public hols (so more like 5.5 weeks) is norm in UK/EU. Most people are free to take it when they want, too.

Pulaski

That's almost right. Four weeks/ 20 days is the mandatory minimum across the whole of the EU, like states and Federal minimum wage laws, some countries have their own higher minimum.
I don't believe that is correct. Most industrial and administrative jobs require on-going coverage, so you can't for example have half your staff taking a two week break during the (short) six week school summer break. As you may recall from another thread you contributed to, parents without seniority in there job, to grab the best vacation weeks, are put in a bind being unable to take their children on a family holiday unless they take them out of school during term time.

Sally Redux

Almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year (known as statutory leave entitlement or annual leave). An employer can include bank holidays as part of statutory annual leave.

Gozit

Off to Europe I go then. The paltry 0-2 weeks you get her is, well, paltry in comparison.

True. Though the term time / unable to take kids out is fault of the state/school system, not the parents or their workplace.

Correction:Off to UK I go then.

Michael

I suspect for many average workers, their income is generally more important than the number of vacation days in most countries. For many it's hard to save for vacations when the disposable median household income for most highly developed countries is between $20,000-$37,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
Although disposable average wages often appear to be better than disposable median household incomes, that is often illusionary since averages are usually skewed upwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage

Hotscot

And far that reason I doubt there's many who would turn down a highly paid job just because there's not enough vacation time.
It's not easy out there, even for highly qualified experienced people.

Michael

True but when you are making $150K plus and have several job offers, then 10% either way is probably not the most important factor. For me, job satisfaction was always the most important thing.

Hotscot

Unfortunately there's not many in that situation though.

scrubbedexpat091

I agree. And is why I generally don't take my vacation time, and either have it paid out directly in each check, or banked to the end of the year depending on employer and what they offer. I may take a random day off unpaid here and there though for something, but no vacation.

Really is no point to take 1-2 weeks off, and sit at home bored with no money to do anything or go anywhere, work is the escape and vacation...lol