Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

[Bob Hubbard]

Besides a handful of national holidays, the typical American worker bee gets two or three precious weeks off out of a whole year to relax and see the world -- much less than what people in many other countries receive.

Nancy Schimkat, an American who lives in Weinheim, Germany, said her German husband, an engineer, gets six weeks of paid vacation a year, plus national holidays -- the norm. His company makes sure he takes all of it.
It's typical for Germans to take off three consecutive weeks in August when "most of the country kind of closes down," Schimkat said. That's the time for big trips, perhaps to other parts of Europe, or to Australia or North America. Germans might also book a ski holiday in the winter and take a week off during Easter.

Finland, Brazil and France are the champs, guaranteeing six weeks of time off.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/23/vacation.in.america/index.html?hpt=C2


I like that. 6 weeks of -paid- vacation. I think I hear my old employer crying.

 

[granfire]

2 to 3 weeks in the US? WHERE?!
(around here it's 1 week mandatory by law...not even the holidays need to be paid...)

Yep, it's nice to have 6 weeks of vacation. It can get tough to schedule all of that in a year (and rollovers are frowned upon. There is a date by which you have to have taken your off days)

As a contrast: Summer break in schools are only 6 weeks. But you get a couple in fall, 2 for Christmas and 2 or 3 for Easter....

The Us is just not a socialistic nation like Germany!

 

[bushidomartialarts]

That just might be part of why we outproduced the rest of the world for the better part of a century.

Also worth noting that the countries that threaten our economic hegemony are the ones that have vacation traditions much like ours (Japan, Singapore, India, China).

Not saying YOU have to love it. God knows I'm a consciencious objector to that way of living -- but it seems to be a working model.

 

[granfire]

That just might be part of why we outproduced the rest of the world for the better part of a century.

Also worth noting that the countries that threaten our economic hegemony are the ones that have vacation traditions much like ours (Japan, Singapore, India, China).

Not saying YOU have to love it. God knows I'm a consciencious objector to that way of living -- but it seems to be a working model.

LOL, if you are talking about last century, please note that for well over 10 years combined any meaningful production ceased in Europe, actually far longer than that, considering the fallout of WWI and II.

And as one of the worlds largest nations it better damn well outproduce smaller countries with less resources.

 

[Empty Hands]

That just might be part of why we outproduced the rest of the world for the better part of a century.

True, but wage growth has been stagnant in real terms for the bottom 4 quintiles since the 70's. The benefits of that production aren't going to the worker bees. Our Gini coefficient and quality of life index also compares unfavorably to nearly all of Europe. All that hard work, and the benefits don't accrue to most of us. Not that we have much choice if we want to keep our jobs, especially considering events since 2008.

What good is hard work if you don't profit from it?

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

How is that working out for Europe though?
I have not been paying any attention to Europe, but I seem to be under the impression that there is some severe problems, especially in places like Greece.. I really do not have the desire to look up the countries, what they offer in terms of vacation, and how they are doing, but I really do not see anything going on in Europe that I would care to emulate.
I run my own business, so I can take as much or as little time off as I want, it just effects my bottom line if I have to pay someone else to do my work while I am gone.
my wife gets a couple weeks a year, but can take off time unpaid if she goes past her vacation time. Seems to me most people would say they dont have enough money to take 2 weeks of vacation somewhere, what are they going to do with 6?
I wonder as an employeer, why I would give 6 weeks of paid vacation to employees as well...

don't get me wrong... I am not saying its a bad thing... just not so sure it really matters at all here in America, and if it is even a good thing for Europe is all.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

http://money.msn.com/market-news/post.aspx?post=392e2342-f1d8-42e4-8b66-0c42b529ab8b&GT1=33002

this just popped up on my newsfeed..
funny..
I guess its working great for them LOL

There's worry Greece will default on its debt. There's worry Italian debt will be downgraded. There's worry that elections in Spain and Germany will make it more difficult for the European Monetary Union to function. European stocks fell to their lowest levels since the end of March.

yes lets emulate these guys..:shrug:

 

[granfire]

How is that working out for Europe though?
I have not been paying any attention to Europe, but I seem to be under the impression that there is some severe problems, especially in places like Greece.. I really do not have the desire to look up the countries, what they offer in terms of vacation, and how they are doing, but I really do not see anything going on in Europe that I would care to emulate.
I run my own business, so I can take as much or as little time off as I want, it just effects my bottom line if I have to pay someone else to do my work while I am gone.
my wife gets a couple weeks a year, but can take off time unpaid if she goes past her vacation time. Seems to me most people would say they dont have enough money to take 2 weeks of vacation somewhere, what are they going to do with 6?
I wonder as an employeer, why I would give 6 weeks of paid vacation to employees as well...

don't get me wrong... I am not saying its a bad thing... just not so sure it really matters at all here in America, and if it is even a good thing for Europe is all.

Well, there have been studies that showed that taking at least 2 weeks in one block is beneficial to reduce build up stress. 3 is better.

Naturally, those 6 weeks come at a cost. But they don't really have a choice now. since it's law.

But since it is paid vacation time, you have enough money to take it.
You don't have to travel, you can just sit home and watch TV...

 

[Empty Hands]

http://money.msn.com/market-news/post.aspx?post=392e2342-f1d8-42e4-8b66-0c42b529ab8b&GT1=33002this just popped up on my newsfeed..
funny..
I guess its working great for them LOL

Greece is a special case, and our debt is in danger of being downgraded. California's already has, or at least they were about to.

Germany on the other hand is sitting pretty, with a very nice trade balance in their favor. The UK is having trouble because their economy was based even more on faulty securities than ours was. France is doing well, but does have structural unemployment issues.

Different places are different. Vacation times seem to have little to do with it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I enjoy several weeks of vacation each year. Well...'enjoy' isn't quite the right word.
If by vacation you mean 'absence of work' yeah, when projects dry up, when the phone stops ringing, and when no one's being a wiener on any of the forums, I guess that's a 'vacation'. But 'paid', not really. Unless you count the passive income streams I have working as 'pay'. But in the traditional idea of a 'paid vacation' which isn't where they pay you and you don't go to work like most folks think, but where you get paid to go somewhere else besides your couch....been a looong time since I had one of those.

I am planning on taking Dec-Jan off this year though. Kinda. Sorta.
You know, unless there are server issues, trouble tickets, emergency phone calls, or a wienie shows up and needs a roasting.



As a worker, I'd love it though. Mandated paid vacations.
As a businessman, and a 'less government = better' type....not so much, y'know?

 

[Xue Sheng]

I blame the puritan work ethic no matter how unreasonable that might be

Hell they get more vacatin time in China than we get here and a standard 1.5 hour lunch to boot

 

[crushing]

And as one of the worlds largest nations it better damn well outproduce smaller countries with less resources.

I think he was talking about average worker productivity.

http://www.bls.gov/fls/#productivity
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/03/business/main3228735.shtml

 

[granfire]

I think he was talking about average worker productivity.

http://www.bls.gov/fls/#productivity
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/03/business/main3228735.shtml

Those statistics (and sources thee of want to see...from personal experience the productivity isn't all that great....unless of course you got a boss like Honda)

 

[billc]

I think that germans should take a lot of time off from work. When Germans start working too hard they start looking at france and the rest of Europe in that funny way that makes everyone nervous.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I enjoy several weeks of vacation each year. Well...'enjoy' isn't quite the right word.
If by vacation you mean 'absence of work' yeah, when projects dry up, when the phone stops ringing, and when no one's being a wiener on any of the forums, I guess that's a 'vacation'. But 'paid', not really. Unless you count the passive income streams I have working as 'pay'. But in the traditional idea of a 'paid vacation' which isn't where they pay you and you don't go to work like most folks think, but where you get paid to go somewhere else besides your couch....been a looong time since I had one of those.

I am planning on taking Dec-Jan off this year though. Kinda. Sorta.
You know, unless there are server issues, trouble tickets, emergency phone calls, or a wienie shows up and needs a roasting.



As a worker, I'd love it though. Mandated paid vacations.
As a businessman, and a 'less government = better' type....not so much, y'know?

I work three twelves, back to back, a week. I get four days off every week; so, who needs a vacation?
Sean

 

[Sukerkin]

How is that working out for Europe though?
I have not been paying any attention to Europe, but I seem to be under the impression that there is some severe problems, especially in places like Greece.

It is important not to be confused on this.

The evisceration of the economies of Europe was not caused by decent working practices that treat the means of production as people rather than organic machines. It was caused by the actions of 'fantastical' fiscal instruments, (the pebble of whose 'failure avalanche' started rolling in the USA) augmented by the globalisation of labour driven by the greed for unreasonable profit.

 

[Empty Hands]

I work three twelves, back to back, a week. I get four days off every week; so, who needs a vacation?
Sean

I do! I work 5 twelves with usually a few halves on the weekend, and I've been doing it for a year and a half with no more than a few days off in a row in that time.

I think that informs my agitation on this topic...

 

[MA-Caver]

I'm gonna take a wild guess that other companies in other countries are able to do this for several reasons...

1. they got lots of employees to take up the slack when one (or two) folks are gone for three weeks so there's no drop in production.

2. they can afford to allow so much time off (with pay) because the CEO's aren't as GREEDY as American CEO's are... so there's no "cutting too deeply into their profit margin" They keep as much profit to live comfortably nothing extravagant and their kids go to regular schools.

3. The euros work a lot harder for a lot longer than Americans do in a typical week. Here in Chattanooga we had the new Volkswagen plant open up. Thousands of new jobs... and hundreds of turnovers each week. A guy I talked to was one of the first hired... said he was worked 10-12 hours a day (HARD) for 6 days straight and while the money was good (killer he said) doing that for 4-6 weeks straight had him exhausted by the month's end. That lots of people were staggering into the plant to clock in and then stagger back out 12 hours later. Said that a lot of people come and go. He was one of them.

Who knows... mebbe we've gotten too soft. I mean we sent a LOT of jobs overseas because it was cheaper for the companies and anything that is providing a low-overhead is gonna put more money into the pockets of the upper officers and stockholders.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Just remembered this; General Electric went to a European model with its Engineers, I am not sure if it was for all staff or not. They now get 6 weeks of vacation and the one guy I talked to loves it but has no idea what to do with it and sometimes he just goes into work

 

[bushidomartialarts]

There's also some groundbreaking work with occasional sabbaticals, flex time, Google's "20 percent" policy and similar ways of doing differently than the traditional US model.