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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> The number of Britons taking a yearly two-week vacation (a travel-agency staple, long standard because of the country’s generous vacation days)

Does the UK have a reputation for generous vacation days? I never knew that - I thought it was pretty standard 28 days here.

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28 days compared to nothing (CityLab seems to be US based) is infinitive percent more :)

Yep. Reads like an american (got the exchange rates the wrong way up), so should have said get reasonable amounts of holiday.

Minimums aren't averages.

Even still, the median US worker is unlikely to earn 4-5 weeks of paid time off during a year. The lowest quarter of wage-earners are as likely as not to have no vacation leave entitlement at all (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs2.t06.htm) [56% with paid vacation, 44% without].

The median number of vacation days for most categories of workers is about 15 (https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/...).

But most of the bottom quarter of earners are part-time workers.

I'm actually surprised that many part time employees are given paid time off at all.

>I'm actually surprised that many part time employees are given paid time off at all.

And there's the rub: it's expected over here.

Or as in Sweden, if you work hourly you usually don't get PTO. Instead you get it as cash, about 12% extra on the salary a normal worker would get.

It's not just expected, it's the law!

28 days, though 8 of them can be the standard public holidays, leaving 20. It's pro rata for part time employees, and often given as cash to people on temporary contracts.

28 isn't zero

When I was a kid, my parents had a three-week vacation every summer, and one week in autumn and one in spring. I never managed that, but that's partly because I get too antsy when I'm away from home for more than two weeks, and partly because I'm my own boss. But it's still completely normal in the Netherlands.

I think it's not just the UK, but Europe and a lot of the developed world. In the US I get 21 days and it's considered extremely generous.

I'm in the US and I get 47 days (vacation, public holidays, company holidays, election day), 47 days is generous.

Sure, a very good point. But the people in the UK probably get the same type of non-arbitrary days off. For comparison, I'm more interested in the ones employees can use at their discretion.

The US has a reputation for ungenerous vacation days.

See here [1] - it is 20 or 28 depends on how you count

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

Surely you're just trolling the majority users of this site? UK's vacation minimums dwarf the grand total of zero in America. Granted 10 days per year is fairly standard amongst most careers in the US.

I don't think it's generous compared to the rest of the EU?

Indeed, most EU countries guarantee the same or better. But in the US (and most of the world, to be brutally honest) it's a different league.

The reason? That most vilified of ideas: socialism.

The reason is labour movements. All European countries are deeply capitalist.

I suggest you go read the history of labour movements across Europe, where they came from, what political parties they begat, what figures brought them support and so on.

European countries are fundamentally social-democratic. Have a look at the etymology of that term.

You can be socialist (in the European sense) and Capitalist at the same time.

Just like capitalism doesn't have to be Laissez-faire, business knows best, let them do what they want. So Socialism doesn't have to equal Communism.

The labour movements of which you speak, often formed political parties, in the UK that was the Labour party. Industries were nationalised, employment rights were given, the NHS was founded. Nevertheless the economy was fundamentally capitalist.

Two weeks or less is standard in the US. By the time you deal with Thanksgiving and Christmas, that's one week, maybe, to actually have a vacation.

28 days is very long compared to the regular 10 days/year in Japan.

The website is American and in America 10-15 days is pretty typical for regular people. In my apartment building the staff have to work public holidays and get 10 days vacation. So yes 28 (+ public holidays!) is very generous.

It's 28 including public holidays.

20 days minimum + 8 days public holidays.

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