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Comment by quantified | Hacker News Reader

> 1-2 week vacation [which to be fair, is already fairly privileged]

Sucks not to be German. 6 weeks a year that gets used is pretty humane.

Western Europe in general. Something between 4-6 weeks is pretty common. Not having at least 4 weeks of paid vacation sounds bonkers?

Same in Australia and New Zealand. The US is the odd duck here, both legally and culturally.

I enjoy taking my month (20 days) off each year. I even have the opportunity to double it and take it at half pay if it suits. Work to live, not live to work.

Canada says... hello.

I think the funniest part of discussions like this on HN is all the Americans who are somehow... proud? for not taking any paid time off, and then the ones that are weirdly grateful for getting a pittance of time off from their employer?

Listen, PTO is money is salary.

Not taking PTO is leaving money on the table, it's the same as being proud that you're not receiving your full salary for your work, or being grateful that your company actually paid the agreed-upon salary this month.

But some people don't make that connection, because they're conditioned by shitty labour rules in the US.

Yoke to the plow, baby. Or spend all your time grinding the yoked yokels. Puritan work influence still strong.

The UK also gives people 6ish weeks (5 weeks to take when you want, plus 8 fixed bank holidays). I grew up in the US and am American more than I am anything else. I've lived in the UK for a relatively short time (6 years, under 20% of my life) -- but that's been my entire professional career. It's cultural differences like this that lead me to believe that America will never feel like "home" again -- I now can't imagine living somewhere where 6 weeks of vacation time seems like it's far outside the norm.

You might have misunderstood the 6 weeks. That's 6 weeks actual vacation.

Bank holidays (different depending on the federal state you're in but minimum is 9 - in Hesse) are on top of that.

To be fair 30 days PTO is simply the standard in tech jobs. Minimum by law is 21, which some other industries do stick to.

5 weeks is 25 days and not at all uncommon in tech jobs, sadly.

The UK minimum is "25 days, including Bank Holidays". Most decent places will make that "25 days, plus Bank Holidays". One place I worked did "25 days, plus Bank Holidays, but since we need in-office cover, you can work a Bank Holiday and take that day off somewhen else."

The UK minimum is now 28 days.

Since bank holidays can be included many places have stuck to 25 + bank holidays, though.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights

Thank you for the fact-check.

Australia is 20 days as well, some companies voluntarily offer 1-2 weeks more. It accrues if you don't take the leave and must be paid out if you leave, there are no caps. But most companies will force you to take leave if you have accrued 40 days as it affects the balance sheet.

Sick/Personal leave is min 10 days/year and also accrues with no cap but is not paid out if you leave. In addition there are myriad of unpaid leaves for causes like bereavement, natural disasters, domestic violence etc.

Don't forget long service leave. A uniquely Australian/New Zealand leave offering. After 10 years you deserve a nice long break from the office. Came about due to the excessively long travel times back in the day to Europe.

Depends on your state, in mine it's 7 years - looking forward to my 6 month half pay sabbatical next year!

(For those unfamiliar with LSL, I could take 3 months full pay if I wanted but half pay for double the time is my choice.)

My employer just let me take it piecemeal, like any other leave. Looking back that was probably worse for both of us. LSL is a good excuse to improve your bus factor.

I could take it piecemeal once it's accrued, but I just don't think that's a good idea. It's quite an opportunity to take a long period off work paid and I intend on honouring it.

Yeah, that's the good stuff.

Do lot of people stay for that long at one company?

So I found this article that says in 2018 it was around 17% (and rising) of employees are at an employer 10 years or more and similar for 20 years and more https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/we-don-t-job-hop-a...

Also note in some states where it's after 10 years you actually start accruing the leave after 7 years and if you leave the company prior to 10 years you get paid out for the amount of long service leave you have accrued. Again from the article at 5 to 10 years tenure is around 18%

Even with low participation it would be political suicide to make long service leave harder to gain or even try to take it away. Probably why Victoria actually made long service leave kick in after only 7 years.

23 years and counting... I've taken one block of 6 months long service leave (1/2 pay) and will be taking another block of a couple of years.

It all depends upon what your priorities are. Mine are working to live, with a minimum of ratrace.

I don’t know if it’s still the case (it’s a long time since I lived in Australia) but at one point Australian workers were actually paid _more_ while on vacation. About 17% more. The rationale is that there was no opportunity for overtime while on vacation, and the extra pay on vacation was to make up for that.

Only for some Awards.

the minimum is 4 weeks. But it's true that it is usually closer to 5 or 6 weeks.

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