Nutek

SultanOfSwing

I think it's something like 72 when it's calculated out properly, in a 65 limit anyway. They just raised it to 70 round here (except close to Chicago), and the average is probably up around 80 now.

Nutek

I did this.

ChocolateBabz

My hubby was an inter-company transfer and made it a stipulation that he retained his 5 weeks plus he gets the public holidays (9 I think plus 2 floaters can't quite remember). I asked him what they give new starts and he said they generally get 3 weeks.

I get *all* the days

pejp

When i moved over with my old company, I got 4 weeks + 3 personal + 5 sick.

I changed jobs last year, and my biggest worry was PTO, but I get 22 days at my new company, although that includes sick time. Luckily my boss doesn't really care what we do, so if anyone is sick they just 'work from home'...i.e. make sure they are at least contactable by phone. Same for appointments and things like that...we 'work from home' whenever we like, and as long as things are getting done, he doesn't mind.

My fiancee found a job here in Denver pretty soon after we arrived. It was only offering 3 weeks off, which we were a bit concerned about due to the difference between my PTO and hers, so she asked them if she didn't take their medical coverage and went on mine instead, could she have an extra week off, and they said yes.

It's definitely a fear I have. The American cultural attitude towards PTO is just downright bizarre, but I've been lucky so far.

celticgrid

See if you can follow this...

I start on 10 days, earned throughout the year, then after 5 years stay on 10 days but every anniversary you get a lump sum 5 day credit which is earned immediately. So effectively 15 days a year.

Then after 10 years you get an additional lump of 35 days. So that year you get 50 days - but 10 have still to be earned through the year.

Another 35 lump sum every 5 years after that.

10 days of public or floating holidays also.

The big bonus though is unlimited time off for sickness and the ability to carry over as much PTO as you want, no time limit. Currently I have around 10 weeks in the 'bank' which I view as a little buffer against job loss.

hungryhorace

Take a sick week.

Seriously.

hungryhorace

Totally. The firm is going to **** you if they want to. Why put yourself out there for them in this way? I never understand that mentality.

johnwoo

I've worked here 35 years, always had 10 days + 12 public holidays to start.
Going up the longer you work there. Which is more than I used to get in the UK. It's not all gravy in the UK, especially for lower income employees today, zero hours contract employees, that many lower skill young people face. Most of you here are probably higher income worker I'd guess.
Plenty of nice places to go around here for the weekend, or day trips to the coast, wineries etc.

Nutek

Good point.

LondonSquirrel

I seriously wouldn't cope without the time off I get here in the UK. I realise working for a university means that I am especially spoilt. We get 5 weeks holiday plus closure days when the college shuts down over Easter for 6 or 7 days and Christmas for 10 or 11 days (and we get to leave at lunchtime the last day before Christmas). Plus the 3 other bank holidays and you can 'buy' up to two weeks extra holiday by sacrificing some salary and I buy the whole lot, works out about £60 or £70 a month less net pay, but I would rather have the time off than the money. We only have to work 35 hours a week and my office have flexitime. You can start as late as 10 and finish as early as 3.30. As long as you do 140 hours in the 4 week period it's fine. Swings and roundabouts depending on the department and manager though. My friend in another office doesn't have flexitime but can work from home sometimes which we can't.

DH, who had only 10 days when he worked in Boston, has got a great schedule. He works full time in a media monitoring job, but he works nights 7 nights on, 7 nights off. Said he couldn't go back to how it was it Boston, but he prefers nights anyway as he worked nights in a supermarket in Cambridge MA part time while he was at uni.

Can't believe people manage on 3 days sick, I get 6 months full pay and then 6 months half pay. New employees get 1 month full, 1 month half, in your 2nd and 3rd year you get 3 + 3, then from your 4th year you get the full whack. I would really worry about what would happen if I had a health problem with such a small sick allowance. I once, years ago, had to have 2 months off with clinical depression.

johnwoo

We'll have you ever thought that someone else is paying for you generous benefits, even when many people in the UK are struggling to get by day to day.

Wintersong

Statutory sick pay is a great safety net to have, but it can definitely backfire on the employer. When I was teaching, before I moved to the US, we had a new teacher start her job at the beginning of the term, work 1 day and then get signed off with depression. We didn't see her again before the end of the school year...

SultanOfSwing

We're not martyrs or anything, it just is what it is.

I get sick a sum total of zero times a year. Getting the cold isn't being sick in my mind. My 3 sick days get used when my daughter projectile vomits in the morning and can't go to school (and often I can work from home on those days - being a salaried employee I can easily get a paid day off that doesn't eat into my PTO allowance). I also have 3 'personal days' that essentially act as an extra 3 sick days if I need them.

Out here we have short-term and long-term disability plans, often offered through the employer, that takes care of your pay during emergency or long term health issues. Whether or not you have a job to go back to afterwards is a whole other deal, but most employers are going to be more reasonable than that.

christmasoompa

The legal minimum in the UK is 20 days, obviously that law wasn't in place when you left, but it is now. And even zero hour contractors are entitled to paid holiday in the UK. 25 days plus public holidays is the norm for most UK companies.