Where would you go?

Hi Folks
Finished work today for 11 days! I LOVE my holidays, and me and hubs have often spoken about moving to another country again (I lived in Spain for a while), but one thing that always comes up is, would we be worse off in terms of holidays. Now, I get 36 holidays from work a year including public, always have xmas off too as we have a shut down, plus my days will increase each year for the next few years to a max of 40. Great I think. So this made me think back to this little bit of research, showing an international comparison of work-holidays. A little summary is below.

Sadly, this really put us off moving to the USA.. which was an obvious choice because of the language. I would really need to be offered a LOT of salary to be willing to sacrifice my holidays!

What do you guys all get ?

Our road trip is meant to start on Friday, but there is SNOW, yes bloody SNOW in April! So we need to do a weather check on Friday morning, everything is booked and paid for so fingers crossed!!




Here's a summary of the holidays if you don't want to read the full article, geeky I know but still good to know!:

"Europe holiday overview
Finland and France make provision for a statutory minimum of 30 days’ holiday a year for employees, closely followed by Lithuania and Russia (28), the UK (28), Poland (26) and Greece (25). The vast majority of countries have a statutory minimum of 20 days including Germany, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. Cyprus and Slovakia (15 days) have the most bank holidays in Europe followed by Malta and Spain (14 days) and then Lithuania, Austria, Portugal and Slovenia (13 days). France, Poland, Finland, Germany and Belgium have 10, while Denmark, Romania and Ireland have 9. With 8 bank holidays a year, the UK and Netherlands have the least in Europe. However, in some European states such as Norway and Switzerland, public holidays can be nullified if they fall on a weekend.

Overall, including the statutory minimum and public holidays, employees in Lithuania are potentially entitled to the greatest amount of paid leave in Europe with 41 days’ holiday per year. France, Finland and Russia rank second with 40 days, followed by Austria and Malta (38), Greece (37) and Sweden, Spain and the UK (36). Employees in Italy have 31 while those in Germany, Romania and Belgium have 30. Employees in Ireland and the Netherlands have the least amount of holiday at 29 and 28 days, respectively. If employers provide 8 bank holidays on top of the statutory minimum, UK employees would receive 36 days’ paid holiday a year, one of the most generous in Europe.

The Americas holiday overview
The United States offers employees no statutory minimum holiday allowance but the typical average is 15 days compared to Canada which offers a statutory minimum of 10 days. Contrary to popular European belief, low levels of statutory holiday in the United States and Canada are not comparative to European standards when taking public holidays into account. Employees in the United States and Brazil have an additional 10 and 11 days public holiday respectively, while workers in Canada are entitled to 9 days’ public holiday. In total, employees in Brazil who can take the full entitlement and the full number of public holidays would receive 41 days off, those in the United States typically 25 days and those in Canada 19 days.

Asian holiday overview
Australia, Japan and New Zealand have the most generous statutory holiday regime, offering employees 20 days’ statutory holiday. South Korea (19), Taiwan (15), Hong Kong and Singapore (14), India (12) and China (10) have less generous entitlements. In addition, Japanese and Indian employees receive 16 public holidays a year followed by South Korea (15), Taiwan (13), Hong Kong (12), and New Zealand, Singapore and China all have 11 days. With 8 days, workers in Australia are entitled to the least public holidays in Asia.

In theory, employees in Japan are entitled, in total, to the most generous holiday allowances with 36 days followed by South Korea (34) and New Zealand (31). Employees in Australia, Taiwan and India would potentially get 28 days followed by Hong Kong (26), Singapore (25) and China (21)

In addition to annual leave and public holidays, employers in some states are required by law to give special leave for getting married, or for the death of a spouse or close relative, for example. Even when there is no requirement, many larger employers provide additional leave for special circumstances"

P xx