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Comment by JSavageOne | Hacker News Reader

I'd imagine one of the largest reasons if not the largest would be the lack of vacation days, which the article doesn't even mention.

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Yes this is huge. Even taking a whole week off will basically require a public apology in most companies.

We have similar amounts of vacation than EU.

The article given below states that the average amount of taken vacation days is 9 per year (article is from 2015). In Europe, the typical amount is 25 paid vacation days (plus holidays), and you usually have to take it out (otherwise you'd have to be financially compensated, so companies usually pressure their employees to take it out fully).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/22/japan-long-hou...

You are correct that vacation is not taken as much as in other countries.

Not in sequential days.

I think you're counting in the numerous official national holidays, but those are so sparse, and the GW is cutthroat to go anywhere.

If "we" is Japan, no you don't.

Do you have any proof? I don't trust HN comments to talk about other countries vacation days, since I see too many people here say Americans get no vacation days, yet every company I've worked at in the USA offered 15-20 days.

> yet every company I've worked at in the USA offered 15-20 days.

Then you've been very fortunate. This is not representative of many people - ask anyone working in a restaurant or retail how much paid vacation they get.

Unlike many countries, in the USA the legal minimum is zero.

15-20 days that usually included sick days, and with high levels of pressure NOT to take any of them.

plus this is HN, so "every company I've ever worked for" is almost certainly a white collar STEM gig -- which ain't 90% of the country.

No it doesn’t include sick days. Not usually, not in the last 20 years. Where did you get that idea from?

High pressure not to take it? I doubt you can say that with any level of confidence.

>that usually included sick days, and with high levels of pressure NOT to take any of them

These are both also untrue based on my experience.

You owe it to yourself to better understand the plight of those around you. Your experiences are far outside of the norm in the US.

Your experience is an outlier then.

Your situation in USA has nothing to do with Japan. Thus guy is correct. Most Japanese with a salaried job can't take a long holiday overseas.

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