Marocco

If I remember correctly, a "migration agent" is the Australian equivalent of an immigration attorney (for immigration into Australia). It's possible that the OP is confused by the fact that Australia has a point-based immigration system.

scrubbedexpat027

Excluding public holidays, I went from 23 days in the UK to 10 days here. Same pay.

christmasoompa

It's been 20 days for at least 12 years - that's when I worked for the stingiest man in the world, and he had no choice but to give us that, although he wasn't happy about it!

The norm in the UK seems to be 25 days now though, that's the only job hubby or I have ever had with only 20 days. Hubby is now on 33 days plus BH's, so 41 in total - his max is 35 which he gets after another 18 months working for the company.

Noorah101

I work in the USA for a really good worldwide engineering firm (based in California). Our PTO (Paid Time Off) accrual scale goes like this:

Less than 5 years of service = 120 hours (3 weeks) per year, you can bank up to 480 hours before you have to use it or lose it.

5 - 19 years of service = 160 hours (4 weeks) per year, you can bank up to 640 hours before you have to use it or lose it.

20+ years of service = 200 hours (5 weeks) per year, you can bank up to 800 hours before you have to use it or lose it. (This is my category, with 23 years working here.)

PTO is for vacation, sick days, or personal days off.

If you have surgery and need extended time off (doctor must fill out a form), we have PTI (Paid Time Illness) you can use. Not sure how much they give you for that, I've only had to use it once, for 1 week.

We also get 8 paid holidays per year.

I'm definitely one of the lucky ones!

Rene

Xebedee

I work in manufacturing.
Very small company and I comprise half of the engineering dep't!
We get 2 weeks a year if on a salary, less if hourly.
3 weeks after 5 years and that's the limit.
9 holidays in the year.
Salaried get unlimited sick time, hourly get 1 week sick and 2 personal days.

The only up-side is that, like the salaried jobs of old, I can take an afternoon off and it does not count as I have been at work that day.
I'd guess that with all the dodging out early and dragging in late it must add up to another week over the year. Fortunately, all the salaried staff do it, so there is never any recourse from the boss.

kins

It's amazing the variety of deals on offer. I've only ever worked for companies that give 23-25 days PTO straight away - three of them - I'm either lucky or in some good industries.

DH's company starts you on 20 days PTO then up to 25 after 5 years. They don't really track what you take though.

Found this article yesterday coincidentally - some have unlimited vacation.
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor...Perks-Vacation

Pulaski

I think it varies mostly by industry, and partially by region. Ironically it seems, to me at least, that strong union states have no better vacation allowances than non-union states, and that the unions like their members to think that the unions have done them a great favour by "fighting" for whatever vacation they get.

Sally Redux

He's isn't basing this huge decision purely on the amount of leave!
























He's basing it on ski-ing in Tahoe.

Pulaski

Which is the only ski resort in the US, ..... isn't it?

scrubbedexpat091

Unions were pretty popular post war and up until the 70's when a decline started, but unions were generally relegated to blue collar workers, and as blue collar jobs left the country and more people became white collar workers, union membership started to fall.

Plus US labor unions have lost power over the years and in some industries strikes are not allowed so the workers have no recourse if the company doesn't want to deal with it. I was union when I worked at an airline but the Railway Labor Act prevented us from easily striking, only legal way was to get a government appointed mediator to declare a 30 day cooling off period and only after said period could we strike, but the president can and has forced striking airline workers back to work in the name of the economy.

Even if you can strike, you may not have a job to come back to, look at Northwest Airlines and their mechanics, the mechanics got the okay to strike, went on strike, the company just outsourced maintenance, and few if any of the striking mechanics ever got their job back at Northwest.

These days in the US the only unions worth any weight with any power are those who represent various government workers, private sector unions are pretty worthless.

I paid 20 a check or 40 a month for a union so I could make the same amount of money, and have no more protections then the state already provided, our contract was literally a copy of the State of California labor standards. lol

scrubbedexpat091

Are you physically working in California? If so I would check and see if the use or lose it policy is even legal, as far as I can remember it is not legal in California to have a use or lose policy.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_vacation.htm

AdobePinon

Yep, plenty of variation. I currently get 18 days vacation, 10 days sick, 12 federal holidays, and a 9/80 schedule (26 non-work days). Talking a long vacation is a little difficult, but I can take lots of short ones.

Oh. Almost forgot. Less than half an hour to the ski hill. Four more in less than 2 hours.

Michael

She doesn't work in California but Arizona. However it is legal in California since every company that I worked for in the Silicon Valley had similar policies.

From your link.

An employer can place a reasonable cap on vacation benefits that prevents an employee from earning vacation over a certain amount of hours

The above does not refer to a cap per year but a cap on the total accumulated hours.

Bluegrass Lass

Currently, I'm a contractor and I have no paid time off whatsoever.

Prior to that, I worked for a small company and only had 5days/yr.

In my last true engineering position, I had 3 weeks/yr (excluding holidays), which then would go up to 4weeks after 5 years.

A better holiday allowance is one of the (many) reasons we are returning back to the UK. It appears to be a better work/life balance in our estimation.

Bob

The missus is on a old contract, so gets loss more holiday than new hires and public holidays has gone from 4 to 7. She's salaried so they don't come out of PTO, but hourly people aren't paid unless they opt to use PTO, but new hires don't get enough time off to cover the public holidays.

Zero minimum holiday, sick, maternity leave by law in my area too.

And these days, a lot of places locally are including sick time and public holidays in your holiday allowance.