4 ms·
“Only” 15 vacation days? I’m not sure if you’re in the US, or if you’re including paid holidays, but 15 days is the average number of vacation days for people
by mercutio2 7y ago
“Only” 15 vacation days?
I’m not sure if you’re in the US, or if you’re including paid holidays, but 15 days is the average number of vacation days for people with 25 years of tenure in full time jobs in the US. Most people with less tenure get much less.
So that wouldn’t be an “only” in the US.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
- CalRobert 7y agoIndeed - this is a fantastic argument in favour of emigrating. It's also the cause of friction in multinationals operating in Europe - I was saddened when, upon starting at my "unlimited PTO" employer, they had an internal doc that this really meant "3-4 weeks" (note that 4 weeks is the legal minimum in the EU)
- Ididntdothis 7y ago15 is “only” in most western countries. Actually in a lot of countries it would be illegal.
- benplumley 7y agoSomething can be both average (relative to a population) and low (in an absolute sense). 15 days of holiday per year seems like a great example of this.
- throwawayhhakdl 7y agoI get 15 at low tenure. But if I got more I don’t think I would be able to find reasonable times to take it. My father became a C suite guy at a fairly large corp and by the end of his career had quite a lot of vacation days each year... but he could never find an opportunity to use half of it because he was accountable for far too much. I don’t really know if I find anything disagreeable in it tbh. Vacation can be nice but it’s necessity is a function of your baseline work life balance... and work life balance tends to be harder the worse your job is. An interesting paradox in that the people who probably need it most are the least entitled to it per societal norms.
- volkl48 7y agoYour general position that Americans often don't get a lot of vacation time by the norms of developed countries isn't wrong, but your choice of data is. That table is 23 years out of date, and it was only for employees at "small private establishments", which generally means <100 employees in BLS terminology. They generally provide less vacation time than the overall average of employers. --------- As of 2017, the average in the US is around 15 days after 5 years, 17 days after 10 years, and 20 days after 20 years. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/private-industry-workers-received-average-of-15-paid-vacation-days-after-5-years-of-service-in-2017.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/private-industry-workers-r... Approximately 90% of full time workers have paid holiday and vacation in some form. https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/table32a.htm https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/... -------- Also, to note the obvious: The norms for your average HN reader in terms of benefits are likely to be different (better) from the average person in society. I would consider 15 days to be an "only" in the part of the job market I am in.
- mercutio2 7y agoI couldn’t figure out in what year my bls link was published; thanks for finding better data, 23 years old is terrible.
- enraged_camel 7y ago10 business days, which comes down to 14 days when you include weekends.
- thfuran 7y agoWhat kind of BS counting is that? Unless you usually work weekends, not working on a weekend isn't a vacation.
- enraged_camel 7y agoWhat I'm saying is that, here in the US, when people say things like "I get two weeks of PTO per year", they mean 10 business days, not 14.