Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- As I understand it the UK holiday requirement includes bank holidays.
I was a bit surprised.
by zeristor - I guess thinking from first principles probably the ideal is neither government mandating days off nor their behind terribly hard to come by.
Better imo would be - if I personally accomplished something meaningful and valuable and 'earned' time, then I am strongly incentivized to take time. Also it taking time will help my health and wellness meaningfully then I should also be incentivized to do so.
But that seems impossible to setup if we aren't all our own business owning entrepreneurs.
by johndhi - From the first principles, I suspect it’s an attitude thing, management-to-individual-contributors relationships. If management treats ICs as equals and tries to form a healthy human-centric culture, you get unlimited PTO. If the management treats ICs as tools to do the work and tries to squeeze maximum performance per dollar out of that biomass, you get sweatshops with zero time off. Incidentally things correlate with ICs replaceability - the more replaceable an individual is, the less reasons to care (see a work-performer as a human with needs and problems and ) business owners have. Plus, the wellbeing of the business is a likely factor - the more breathing space it gets, the more it could afford (unless greed and lack of long-term planning kills everything) to be less financially optimal short-term for long-term prosperity.
Regulations are means of pushing the bottom line back at scale. They should be unnecessary in ideal humane society, but that’s not a thing. I wonder whether there’s a way to shift the culture somehow… but there seems to be no political will for that, because it’s certainly not any popular agenda point.
by drdaeman - Of course, nobody really gets paid for days off, anywhere, ever. Salaries are prorated, people are paid for the days they actually work.by gweinberg
- Of course not, but there is a strong default option effect.
And more often then not an employee _has to_ take the exact amount of vacation that's mandated in their country.
by yreg - Are you talking about in Europe?
Because at my company, in the US, I am not required to take any time off. I can bank any amount I want and spend it when I prefer. And it explicitly is treated as a paid day of work.
- All I wanted from this article was a table with the list of countries and the amounts of paid days off, but the chart labels only 16 countries.
The referenced source includes an image with all of the values: https://www.moorepay.co.uk/app/uploads/2025/07/01_Which-Coun...
by yreg - Why does it say 0 for the US? You have Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July and more? Are they unpaid days off?by cinntaile
- Because it gets more attention if they ignore reality and treat a lack of a federal mandate as meaningful information.by strictnein
- The rest of the world seems to believe that if the government doesn't mandate it, it doesn't happen.by tarxvf
- Holidays are on top of vacations so they shouldn't be counted .by krzyk
- It depends on the job and is not mandated to be paid, or even given off.by panzagl
- I think they're technically not federally mandated. Businesses can be open on Christmas at their discretion and require workers to come in.by nemomarx
- Depends on the company. The US maintains no requirements, federal holidays are a suggestion, not a mandate.
A few states inside the US upgrade federal holidays to state holidays to required paid time off. Most don't.
In the US paid holidays are a corporate "tradition" more than a regulated common good.
Even US federal employee holidays vary between agencies and branches of government.
by WorldMaker - The US has generally higher wages than Europe and lower taxation rates. Those paid days off are not free.by ChocolateGod
- The areas with the highest wages are disproportionately more expensive, and the personal risks forced on both workers and the unemployed are far dangerous. (Esp lack of healthcare.)
- This comment needs to be pinned.
- > lower taxation rates
eh.. many western countries have comparable taxation rates. That's not true.
Regardless it would be nice to have the choice to work 75% the hours for 75% pay. Not many jobs offer that, though.
Everything in the US is built around maximum value extraction for corporate profits, and I believe this is just another cog in that system.
by tripleee - > higher wages than Europe and lower taxation rates.
ah yes live to work. Not work to live right?
by xela79 - And the US has the lower life expectancy.by croes
- Switzerland has all that and paid days off on par with the rest of Europe.by Tade0
- You talk as if you believe low taxation rates are good for low earners.by estomagordo
- You're assuming that's due to more days off? I have my doubts. I think the US could offer more paid days off, and it would retain its higher wages and lower taxation rates.by didibus
- What is going on in the US is nothing short of shameful.by ramijames
- I've never worked at a job that didn't offer some form of PTO, only exception is when you are doing contract work and not a full time employee, you simply take time off when the rest of the company does for no pay during those windows of time.
- https://www.bls.gov/charts/employee-benefits/paid-leave-sick...
Could be better for sure, but a graph showing the US as having 0 days of paid days off because the federal government doesn't mandate anything is misleading at best. Average US worker after 1 year of employment earns 7 sick days and 11 vacation days. And likely has some state and federal holidays off as well, and could very well qualify for state required PTO and sick time. But that doesn't get clicks and attention.
More data, if one is curious:
by strictnein - I dont want to derail the conversation about the article but what's with two separate accounts posting within 5 minutes of each other both going off about America inventing transistors?
I wonder how much vacation time the people who invented the transistor took each year.
Edit: up to three mentions of transistors now. Bizarre
- That is surprising, unlike the expected USA bad rhetoric
- I’m assuming the data for Europe is largely correct, but a lot of the per country data doesn’t pass the smell test to me. Afghanistan (35 days), Libya (45), Yemen (46), etc. what percentage of workers there are getting that many paid days off?
Edit - the original source even had the audacity to label Yemen with a “smiley face” since it has the most paid days for the region.
by MichaelNolan