Some companies will offer either an annual increase in the number of paid vacation days based on seniority/time employed, a generous allowance from the start, o

Some companies will offer either an annual increase in the number of paid vacation days based on seniority/time employed, a generous allowance from the start, or just the fabled "unlimited" vacation days. There are also all the national holidays that result in 3-day weekends, the week long vacation that is Thanksgiving for many workers, as well as Christmas shutdowns. It really varies on the industry/job-type, but the bare minimum two weeks of paid vacation can be found in many other places too. Something that gets missed a lot in these conversations is that hourly workers are often on a vacation accrual type system. Time worked = time vacation earned at a certain ratio. The more senior you become, the higher that ratio. This is anecdata, but I've seen guys be able to take a week-long vacation every three months without ever depleting their two week allowance because they have "refilled" their vacation time by that point. For job offers that can be negotiated prior to going in, it's been observed that some people might have completely, almost wildly, different vacation plans than what is standard because of what they negotiated at the offer-stage of their employment. That all being said, I'd rather much have just a simpler, 4-5 week standard across the board vacation law. Would cut the headache out of trying to figure out vacation accrual vs. usage ratios, play guessing games on exactly how unlimited that unlimited plan is, random gossip of that ONE guy at work who's on some different vacation plan because he strongarmed HR during hiring to get it, etc.