Want to be happy? Don't live in the UK

(http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandh...)

We get eight days, sometimes with an extra day for special occasions (royal weddings, etc)

Vacation ("holiday") is 28 days, but could include public holidays.

(http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Timeoffandh...)

> All workers have a right to a minimum of 5.6 weeks paid annual leave,

Sometimes workers might be forced to use some of their vacation over Christmas.

Some low paid workers will use their annual paid sick leave as informal holiday to supplement their holidays. I worked with people who would tally off their 12 paid days on their holiday chart. This, obviously, makes things tricky for the employer. (That particular employer started asking people to provide doctors' notes for any sick day on a Monday or Friday, or any over 3 days. Since that's not a legal requirement doctors would charge for the letter. (NHS doctors are allowed to charge for some things) and so the employer was forced to take this cost. Since, at the time, it was hard to get to see a GP within 2 days employees would have to take time off work so they could see a doctor to get the sick note that would cover them for the time they had off earlier in the week. A 7 minute appointment would often be late; so an employer would need time to get to the appointment, time to wait, and time to get back. Since no-one knew how long they'd had to wait they would often do a bit of shopping while they were in town.

This scheme did nothing to stop the lazy skyvers. But it did make things frustrating for the honest.

tl:dr Cheap labour is not the only reason China is taking so many tech companies.)