jukes

Hi,
Have applied for a job in US and it states that they provide:
Paid holiday leave (up to 56 hours annually)
Paid vacation (after 1 year of service)
What is the difference between these?
Also, is it usual for salary to not be stated?
Thanks

tonrob

Holiday probably refers to what we'd call Bank Holidays in the UK.

Sounds like there is no paid vacation (what we'd call holiday or annual leave in the UK) for the first year. Shite, but by no means unknown.

Yes, very normal for salary not to be stated. Also a little bit shite but happens in the UK too. Gives everyone (especially them) room for negotiation.

Xebedee

Holidays in America are single days off and you will usually get 8 of them in the year. 4th July, Xmas Day, New Years day, labor day, etc. There are a few more in the year, but it varies by employer wether or not you will get them.
Vacation allowance will vary a bit also. There is no legal minimum or right to it here. 2 weeks a year is typical in a "decent" job. Some offer 1 week either before or after a year in the job. It depends on the work / employer. An American employer will be more likely to negotiate salary than more time off and thats a sad fact.
Salary is very rarely stated.

jukes

so it means paid public holidays and that is it, for first year! Now that is even worse than i imagined! Actually it's for my husband who will not be impressed. Perhaps self employment is the route to go!

GeoffM

Indeed it appears to be - but comes with huge logistical challenges if you need to hit the ground running in the US!

Xebedee

I did temp work for 4 years just to have proper holidays. The unpaid time off was a wash with the higher salary, basically.
2 weeks ago had a call from a headhunter trying to get me to take a job in my "field" in NC; about an hour away. I said I'll work for $60k p/a (which is $5-10k under going rate) as long as they give me 4wks off a year paid.
Reply was they'd be happy to "talk" about the salary, but the request for time off was too much.

Its an insight into how American companies view employees.
As property.

Good luck.

Noorah101

My alien husband is self-employed, and has even less time off than that. In the 7 years he's been in the USA, we've taken 2 vacations together...one week in Turkey in 2008, and one week in Hawaii in 2011. When it's your own business, you work even harder to keep it afloat in this economy.

Rene

N1cky

Some companies are very flexible about unpaid time off. I only get 10 days paid vacation, but have taken around 20 days a year off for the last 2 years.

tonrob

I was going to say... that sounds like the route to working more hours, not less. At least to begin with, in a lot of businesses.

Noorah101

Agreed. For the first 4 years, he worked hard to create the business and build up a strong client base. Just about the time he was feeling relaxed and could take some time off, the economy tanked and for the past 3 years he's been struggling to KEEP the client base going.

I mistakenly thought a self-employed person had the luxury of saying oh hey I'll just take a couple of weeks off whenever I want. But now I see that's not the case...in order to keep clients happy, it takes extra work, not less work! And without the clients, there would be no business.

Rene

Michael

In the Silicon Valley, most companies also have one more category which is PTO (paid or personal time off). PTO used to be sick time off but most companies now count any day taken off for personal reasons as PTO. Typically there are between 5-15 PTO days per year for Silicon Valley companies but they normally can't be used as vacation (usually only one or two days at a time).

jukes

Yes, self employed v employed. He was self employed here and it can be hard if work not rolling in. He is a plasterer, decorator, renovator etc. But 7 days off for the year would be tough too. Had wondered about unpaid leave, worth asking. We won't have rent to pay, although health insurance will be like paying rent!

jukes

This particular job has 56 hours paid sick leave/year separate from other leave. We really were lucky in the UK to have so much paid leave!

Michael

Self employed pays self employment tax also (2 times FICA tax to pay for employee and employer contributions). Some companies offer employees the option of unpaid leave.

Michael

The disadvantage of sick leave over PTO is that some companies require the employee to prove that the employee was sick (doctors excuse) in order to be paid or my frown if too many days are taken compared to other workers.