America: No Vacation Time For You | NEWS JUNKIE POST - 0 views
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In the richest country in the world, there is no right to any vacation time
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In most other wealthy nations, there are between 20-35 vacation days per year (4-7 weeks).
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1 in 4 private-sector workers in the US do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays
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*The average paid vacation + paid holidays provided to U.S. workers in the private sector (15) is less than the minimum required by law in nearly every other rich country
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69% of low wage workers have vacation
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36% of part time workers have any paid vacation
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The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation.
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but most of the rest of the world’s rich countries offer between five and 13 paid holidays per year.
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For example, the average lower-wage worker (less than $15 per hour) with a vacation benefit received only 10 days of paid vacation per year in 2005, compared to 14 days of paid vacation for higher-wage workers with paid vacations. If we look at all workers ? those who receive paid vacations and those who don’t ? the vacation gap between lower-wage and higher-wage workers is even larger: only 7 days for lower-wage workers, compared to 13 days for higher-wage workers.
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we also note that several foreign countries offer additional time off for younger and older workers, shift workers, and those engaged in community service including jury duty.
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Three countries even mandate that employers pay vacationing workers a small premium above their standard pay in order to help with vacation-related expenses
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Our analysis does not cover paid leave for other reasons such as sick leave, parental leave, or leave to care for sick relatives.
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A 2007 report by the World Tourism Organization cataloged a sampling of nations to compare and contrast figures of the average number of vacation days offered: Italy 42 days France 37 days Germany 35 days Brazil 34 days United Kingdom 28 days Canada 26 days Korea 25 days Japan 25 days U.S. 13 days
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Even Koreans who work hundreds of more hours per year than Americans average nearly twice the number of paid vacation days
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On the other side of the scale, people in The Netherlands work hundreds of hours less per year than Americans, and averaged 45 paid days off at one time (recent data not available).
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One in six workers in the US are unable to take any vacation days for various reasons (usually due to workload), with some people going for years without taking their offered time off.
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They calculate this to be worth $19.3 billion a year to their employers.
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And 53% of respondents did not know that US employees receive considerably less annual vacation time than their counterparts in other industrialized countries.
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The research firm Ipsos
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lists the percentage of people in the following countries that used the full amount of their offered paid vacation time: France: 89 percent Argentina: 80 percent Hungary: 78 percent Britain: 77 percent Spain: 77 percent Saudi Arabia: 76 percent Germany: 75 percent Belgium: 74 percent Turkey: 74 percent Indonesia: 70 percent Mexico: 67 percent Russia: 67 percent Italy 66 percent Poland: 66 percent China: 65 percent Sweden: 63 percent Brazil: 59 percent India: 59 percent Canada: 58 percent United States: 57 percent South Korea: 53 percent Australia: 47 percent South Africa: 47 percent Japan: 33 percent Why the discrepancy? Kathleen E. Christensen, the founder of the Workplace, Work Force and Working Families program at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and author of the book Workplace Flexibility: Realigning 20th-Century Jobs for a 21st-Century Workforce, states
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Many of these countries have strong labor unions and the workers are more protected than in the U.S.”
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Ironic that the country with the largest economy and greatest wealth in the world does not require any vacation time for the workers who create the wealth with their labor. When paid annual and holiday leave is offered, it is less than half of what most other countries receive, and of that almost half of Americans do not use all of their days.
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addition to our finding that the United States is the only country in the group that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time, we also note that several foreign countries offer additional time off for younger and older workers, shift workers, and those engaged in community service including jury duty
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addition to our finding that the United States is the only country in the group that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time, we also note that several foreign countries offer additional time off for younger and older workers, shift workers, and those engaged in community service including jury duty
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n addition to our finding that the United States is the only country in the group that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time, we also note that several foreign countries offer additional time off for younger and older workers, shift workers, and those engaged in community service including jury duty.
