7 ms·

Quite funny to read about maternity leave being an extraordinary perk - 6 months paid is the statutory minimum in Ireland and it must start a reasonable amount

by fuzzix 14y ago

Quite funny to read about maternity leave being an extraordinary perk - 6 months paid is the statutory minimum in Ireland and it must start a reasonable amount of time before the child is born. Is it also true that there is no minimum amount of annual leave allowance in the US? You have to negotiate it? edit Not to suggest Ireland is ahead of the curve here, paternity leave does not exist whereas it would in, say, Sweden.

ceras 14y ago
No minimum time off in the US. For most white collar jobs, 10 or 15 vacation days is typical (but many Americans feel pressure to not use all their vacation days). Some companies offer more, especially to employees with seniority. Government jobs tend to be nice about this, too. This is in addition to holidays -- about 8 or so per year is typical for these workers, I think (days like Christmas that most everyone in the company has off). Those working blue collar jobs, however, aren't always so lucky. They might not have any vacation days or even holidays.
- fuzzix 14y ago
  Well, isn't that just disgraceful. No wonder George Costanza was a half-assing burnout...
- alexkus 14y ago
  It's 28 days minimum in the UK[1] (for a full time employee) but these can include the public holidays (8 a year in England/Wales, 9 a year in Scotland and 10 a year in NI). <generalisations follow> In reality most IT companies give ~25 days and give the 8 public holidays off too. Longer service often gets you more days. I'm up to 27 days/year (plus the 8 public holidays). Any reasonable IT company will also require you to take all of your holiday during the year, it's a manager's responsibility to ensure that his team are using their holiday. There's certainly no pressure to not use all of the days! I can carry over the odd day or two across years but generally not allowed to accrue large amounts of unused paid leave. We don't have a concept of an allocation of "sick days" either, if you're unwell for a day or a few days you can self certify yourself off work sick. If you're ill for longer than a week the expectation is that you'll provide a letter from a Doctor explaining the absence. If you're ill frequently then the company will discuss it with you (and if you're pulling frequent sickies then that'll be dealt with as a disciplinary). I've had 3 days off sick in the last 5 years. 1. https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays#england-and-wales https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays#england-and-wales
- krzyk 14y ago
  In Poland it's 20 or 26 days off, all state holidays are added on top of that (there are few days, probably around 8). All of those are paid. Except those one can also take unpaid vacation but that has to be negotiated with the employer. 20 days is until you have 10 years of work experience, but graduating counts as 8 years of experience so most people just have to work 2 years to jump to 26 days.
patio11 14y ago
Many facets of US employment law are different on a state-by-state basis, so "The US sets no minimum/maximum for ..." can frequently be true but vacuous. Broadly speaking, salaried employees in the US can expect a statutory minimum of 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. Fairly few states mandate paid maternity/paternity leave. They're available at many companies as a perk. Broadly speaking, Americans enjoy broad discretion in negotiating the amount and format of paid leave. By law and custom, the practical minimum is ~2 weeks plus holidays for most white collar workers. We historically do not have European-style vacations as an expected feature of the social contract.
- fuzzix 14y ago
  Fair point. I wonder if the increasing number of us tech firms setting up in .ie (for whatever reason, being an Irish graduate I know it's not for the skills pool) find the adjustment difficult - 20 days minimum, 25 not uncommon, with the ability to carry some leave across years generally accepted. edit Anecdotally, even companies based in the UK have had trouble with the difference in employment law when setting up (or wrapping up) here, though I would put that down to lack of diligence rather than any cultural thing.
  - ido 14y ago
    Ireland has (or at least had as of a couple years ago) some sort of tax loophole that allows international companies to dodge paying some taxes both in their home country and in Ireland.
    - gfritzsche 14y ago
      See e.g. the Double Irish Arrangement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
    - easytiger 14y ago
      its not a loophole, they have very low corporation tax compared with anywhere else
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
codemac 14y ago
Also - other places I have worked (NetApp notably) have had better benefits than the Google offers I have received. So don't read too much into the hype, there are several places that are on par or better when it comes to treating your employees well. And yes, it is true that there is no minimum leave federally. I don't know about individual states. The Department of Labor is linked[0] on the wikipedia article about leave, seems to be an accurate source. [0]: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/vacation_leave.htm http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/vacation_leave.htm
- ohsnapman 14y ago
  Can you post a link? At least according to this link: http://www.netapp.com/us/careers/your-career/benefits-new.aspx http://www.netapp.com/us/careers/your-career/benefits-new.as... Google's actual US benefits are scattered, unfortunately, but: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Google-RVW245122.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Google-RVW2... NetApp offers a $3000 401k match, whereas Google does $8750 (50% of maximum) with no vesting. NetApp gives you 25 days vacation a year after 10 years, 15 days after year 2, 20 on year 6. You get 25 days after your 5th year at Google, 20 on 4th year, start at 15. NetApp offers $5250/year in tuition reimbursement. Google offers $13,000/year. In addition to all of these, it's well known that Google provides donation match to a charity, gym reimbursement, heavily subsidized massages, sick days as needed. If Google benefits are hype, I'd love to see data that shows where other companies beat them out.
  - codemac 14y ago
    Glassdoor isn't a valid reference for anything (it's like a wikipedia page, except no one is trying to cite sources), and benefits are negotiable, including everything on that NetApp page. Please don't misunderstand me, obviously Google is one of the better place to work these days. Their benefits are great, but it's not far and away best for every individual. Articles like this are marketing for Google.. grumble grumble link to pg's submarine article.
    - ohsnapman 14y ago
seivan 14y ago
Many of the Irish and Swedish safety nests are not sustainable under the current economy and will eventually crash. I love it whenever people bring up Sweden and don't realise that countries like Sweden and Germany can't sustain the benefits they give out. When I get older I won't have the same access. Germany pays around 50% taxes, Sweden it's around 30-40% for software developer salaries.
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
  Sweden had a deficit of 0.40% of GDP in 2011 (last year I have figures for), in that same year the US had a budget deficit of about 10% of GDP. Furthermore, maternity leave and holiday time are neither expensive nor are they getting more so in the future. What is more worrying in the long term are benefits associated with retirement because due to demographic changes that cost will continue to grow even as the number of people in the labour force stays steady or slowly shrinks. Those problems are not unique to Sweden.
  - mongol 14y ago
    Thank your making an informed statement about this. I don't think parent knew what he was talking about, his figures about tax rates in Sweden were far from accurate or knowledgeable.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- patrickg 14y ago
  50% taxes in Germany? Example: you get 42.000 Euro/year, you pay ~20% taxes. If you earn 100.000 Euro/year, you pay 30%.
  - seivan 14y ago
    I am sorry, I should have said Berlin. 100k euro a year is not 30% in Berlin. Please check your source again.
pjmlp 14y ago
The more I learn about US work laws, the more I like being an European.
- Jach 14y ago
  I guess it depends where you are in Europe. I'm glad I'm in the US and not in Hungary. http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_give_you_a_job http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_giv... Edit: I found it interesting that in http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/otherreleases/smallbusiness08ed.pdf http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/docume... on page 58, about 58% of sampled women in Ireland are in jobs classified as "low skilled non-manual" or "elementary" compared to about 32% for men in medium-to-large businesses, but 22% in small businesses. When your female employee might take 6 months off, paid while doing nothing useful for the company, it's best if the work they would have done can be easily (and cheaply, so that 2X isn't so much greater than X) done by another, eh?
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    Germany
- hect0r 14y ago
  Why? Europe isn't exactly a hotbed of innovation, economic dynamism or growth; and that is largely attributable to the socialist mindset that pervades much of Europe. Although entrepreneurialism is a word that originated in Europe, it is rather hard to find much evidence of it in any meangingful way.
  - nodata 14y ago
    Are you suggesting that the 50 United States are a hotbed of those things?
    - hect0r 14y ago
      No, but I am suggesting that, in general, free markets lead to growth whereas socialist experiments such as those in Europe tend to fail and lead to a variety of social and economic ills. One just look at the aging population, declining birth rate plus vast social security apparatus in some of these European states to see that they are heading yet again towards disaster.
VeejayRampay 14y ago
Well, since Ireland has been abortion-retarded until very recently, I guess you guys had to implement some proper maternity care.
- seivan 14y ago
  I suspect either people dislike the use of the word retarded in a offensive way, or they didn't get that you meant retarded as in "delayed". I like to think you were downvoted because they didn't grasp you meant delayed or behind progress :)
  - VeejayRampay 14y ago
    Nah I meant retarded. And people are right to downvote it, I shouldn't have used that kind of language. It only goes to pollute the message which was in essence that the religious grip in Ireland has been a very detrimental factor in the progress towards proper health care for women in the country. Sorry if I offended anyone, it was wrong.
netcan 14y ago
Your entitlement to pay and superannuation during maternity leave depends on the terms of your contract of employment. Employers are not obliged to pay women on maternity leave. You may qualify for Maternity Benefit which is a Department of Social Protection payment you have sufficient PRSI http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/maternity_leave.html http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_r...
- fuzzix 14y ago
  Ah, seems I misread the info. An artifact of commenting at 6am.
hect0r 14y ago
By forcing employers to pay women six months maternity leave, it means that the cost of employing a woman of child-bearing age relative to a man is much higher and hence, all things being equal, the economically rational approach is to discriminate against women in hiring and promotion. This is just one of the many unintended consequences of government interference; the other, of course, is the minimum wage which is a particularly nefarious and wicked concept that results in the unskilled being kept unemployed and economically disadvantaged.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- nodata 14y ago
  That's short sighted: if you discriminate against women, who will give birth to the men?
  - hect0r 14y ago
    If I am an employer in a society where, for each birth, the government mandates six month minimum paid maternity leave. I am hiring for a particular role and have two candidates of equivalent skill with the only difference being one is female and of child-bearing age. Which would you hire? The female may get pregnant and impose two costs on my company: firstly, the cost of maternity leave and, secondly, the cost of finding and training a temporary replacement for a minimum of six months. The rational thing is to hire the male to mitigate this risk since the costs will be lower and productivity assumed to be higher over term of employment. A better solution is for governments to not force such things but allow companies to negotiate freely with employees. Some may decide to offer extended maternity leave as a differentiator and to attract and retain female talent. But if they do so, they are doing so with coercion and for rational reasons.
    - sopooneo 14y ago
      I may be wrong, but I think you are double counting the cost of the maternity leave. The cost to the company is the cost of finding/training/paying a temp. The cost of paying the woman her salary while she is gone would have still occurred if she wasn't gone. Or am I missreading? You would include lost productivity due to a less effective temp worker I suppose. My general response to letting companies negotiate freely is that it seems important, but potentially destructive at it's extreme. I think there should be certain minimum labor standards applied to all employers so that no one employer is at an economic disadvantage by treating their workers humanely. Regarding such minimum requirements including six months of paid maternity leave I'm not sure how I feel.
saosebastiao 14y ago
Maternity Leave elsewhere is typically a government operated insurance program. They typically are not 100% salary, and the burden of paying the employee falls on the insurance program. Since we don't have an insurance program, paid maternity leave is a pretty big deal, as the company fronts all the costs, including the replacement/temp.
rmc 14y ago
Is it also true that there is no minimum amount of annual leave allowance in the US? You have to negotiate it? Correct. Unlike the EU, the US has no minimum holidays. however ¾s or so of US employees have holidays. For white collar workers, you're almost certainly guaranteed holidays (from what I know). Not to suggest Ireland is ahead of the curve here I was talking to some Germans a few years ago. They were shocked to discover we only had 20 holiday days. You get 30 in Germany. They didn't know what they'd do with only 20. Fun excersive: Look at the list of EU countries by how much paid holiday time they give. Look at the lowest countries. Then look at the countries that are being bailed out by other EU countries. :P

by fuzzix 14y ago

ceras 14y ago

No minimum time off in the US. For most white collar jobs, 10 or 15 vacation days is typical (but many Americans feel pressure to not use all their vacation days). Some companies offer more, especially to employees with seniority. Government jobs tend to be nice about this, too. This is in addition to holidays -- about 8 or so per year is typical for these workers, I think (days like Christmas that most everyone in the company has off). Those working blue collar jobs, however, aren't always so lucky. They might not have any vacation days or even holidays.

fuzzix 14y ago
Well, isn't that just disgraceful. No wonder George Costanza was a half-assing burnout...
alexkus 14y ago
It's 28 days minimum in the UK[1] (for a full time employee) but these can include the public holidays (8 a year in England/Wales, 9 a year in Scotland and 10 a year in NI). <generalisations follow> In reality most IT companies give ~25 days and give the 8 public holidays off too. Longer service often gets you more days. I'm up to 27 days/year (plus the 8 public holidays). Any reasonable IT company will also require you to take all of your holiday during the year, it's a manager's responsibility to ensure that his team are using their holiday. There's certainly no pressure to not use all of the days! I can carry over the odd day or two across years but generally not allowed to accrue large amounts of unused paid leave. We don't have a concept of an allocation of "sick days" either, if you're unwell for a day or a few days you can self certify yourself off work sick. If you're ill for longer than a week the expectation is that you'll provide a letter from a Doctor explaining the absence. If you're ill frequently then the company will discuss it with you (and if you're pulling frequent sickies then that'll be dealt with as a disciplinary). I've had 3 days off sick in the last 5 years. 1. https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays#england-and-wales https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays#england-and-wales
krzyk 14y ago
In Poland it's 20 or 26 days off, all state holidays are added on top of that (there are few days, probably around 8). All of those are paid. Except those one can also take unpaid vacation but that has to be negotiated with the employer. 20 days is until you have 10 years of work experience, but graduating counts as 8 years of experience so most people just have to work 2 years to jump to 26 days.

patio11 14y ago

Many facets of US employment law are different on a state-by-state basis, so "The US sets no minimum/maximum for ..." can frequently be true but vacuous. Broadly speaking, salaried employees in the US can expect a statutory minimum of 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. Fairly few states mandate paid maternity/paternity leave. They're available at many companies as a perk. Broadly speaking, Americans enjoy broad discretion in negotiating the amount and format of paid leave. By law and custom, the practical minimum is ~2 weeks plus holidays for most white collar workers. We historically do not have European-style vacations as an expected feature of the social contract.

fuzzix 14y ago
Fair point. I wonder if the increasing number of us tech firms setting up in .ie (for whatever reason, being an Irish graduate I know it's not for the skills pool) find the adjustment difficult - 20 days minimum, 25 not uncommon, with the ability to carry some leave across years generally accepted. edit Anecdotally, even companies based in the UK have had trouble with the difference in employment law when setting up (or wrapping up) here, though I would put that down to lack of diligence rather than any cultural thing.
- ido 14y ago
  Ireland has (or at least had as of a couple years ago) some sort of tax loophole that allows international companies to dodge paying some taxes both in their home country and in Ireland.
  - gfritzsche 14y ago
    See e.g. the Double Irish Arrangement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
  - easytiger 14y ago
    its not a loophole, they have very low corporation tax compared with anywhere else

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

codemac 14y ago

Also - other places I have worked (NetApp notably) have had better benefits than the Google offers I have received. So don't read too much into the hype, there are several places that are on par or better when it comes to treating your employees well. And yes, it is true that there is no minimum leave federally. I don't know about individual states. The Department of Labor is linked[0] on the wikipedia article about leave, seems to be an accurate source. [0]: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/vacation_leave.htm http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/vacation_leave.htm

ohsnapman 14y ago
Can you post a link? At least according to this link: http://www.netapp.com/us/careers/your-career/benefits-new.aspx http://www.netapp.com/us/careers/your-career/benefits-new.as... Google's actual US benefits are scattered, unfortunately, but: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Google-RVW245122.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Google-RVW2... NetApp offers a $3000 401k match, whereas Google does $8750 (50% of maximum) with no vesting. NetApp gives you 25 days vacation a year after 10 years, 15 days after year 2, 20 on year 6. You get 25 days after your 5th year at Google, 20 on 4th year, start at 15. NetApp offers $5250/year in tuition reimbursement. Google offers $13,000/year. In addition to all of these, it's well known that Google provides donation match to a charity, gym reimbursement, heavily subsidized massages, sick days as needed. If Google benefits are hype, I'd love to see data that shows where other companies beat them out.
- codemac 14y ago
  Glassdoor isn't a valid reference for anything (it's like a wikipedia page, except no one is trying to cite sources), and benefits are negotiable, including everything on that NetApp page. Please don't misunderstand me, obviously Google is one of the better place to work these days. Their benefits are great, but it's not far and away best for every individual. Articles like this are marketing for Google.. grumble grumble link to pg's submarine article.
  - ohsnapman 14y ago

seivan 14y ago

Many of the Irish and Swedish safety nests are not sustainable under the current economy and will eventually crash. I love it whenever people bring up Sweden and don't realise that countries like Sweden and Germany can't sustain the benefits they give out. When I get older I won't have the same access. Germany pays around 50% taxes, Sweden it's around 30-40% for software developer salaries.

Mvandenbergh 14y ago
Sweden had a deficit of 0.40% of GDP in 2011 (last year I have figures for), in that same year the US had a budget deficit of about 10% of GDP. Furthermore, maternity leave and holiday time are neither expensive nor are they getting more so in the future. What is more worrying in the long term are benefits associated with retirement because due to demographic changes that cost will continue to grow even as the number of people in the labour force stays steady or slowly shrinks. Those problems are not unique to Sweden.
- mongol 14y ago
  Thank your making an informed statement about this. I don't think parent knew what he was talking about, his figures about tax rates in Sweden were far from accurate or knowledgeable.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
patrickg 14y ago
50% taxes in Germany? Example: you get 42.000 Euro/year, you pay ~20% taxes. If you earn 100.000 Euro/year, you pay 30%.
- seivan 14y ago
  I am sorry, I should have said Berlin. 100k euro a year is not 30% in Berlin. Please check your source again.

pjmlp 14y ago

The more I learn about US work laws, the more I like being an European.

Jach 14y ago
I guess it depends where you are in Europe. I'm glad I'm in the US and not in Hungary. http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_give_you_a_job http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_giv... Edit: I found it interesting that in http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/otherreleases/smallbusiness08ed.pdf http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/docume... on page 58, about 58% of sampled women in Ireland are in jobs classified as "low skilled non-manual" or "elementary" compared to about 32% for men in medium-to-large businesses, but 22% in small businesses. When your female employee might take 6 months off, paid while doing nothing useful for the company, it's best if the work they would have done can be easily (and cheaply, so that 2X isn't so much greater than X) done by another, eh?
- pjmlp 14y ago
  Germany
hect0r 14y ago
Why? Europe isn't exactly a hotbed of innovation, economic dynamism or growth; and that is largely attributable to the socialist mindset that pervades much of Europe. Although entrepreneurialism is a word that originated in Europe, it is rather hard to find much evidence of it in any meangingful way.
- nodata 14y ago
  Are you suggesting that the 50 United States are a hotbed of those things?
  - hect0r 14y ago
    No, but I am suggesting that, in general, free markets lead to growth whereas socialist experiments such as those in Europe tend to fail and lead to a variety of social and economic ills. One just look at the aging population, declining birth rate plus vast social security apparatus in some of these European states to see that they are heading yet again towards disaster.

VeejayRampay 14y ago

Well, since Ireland has been abortion-retarded until very recently, I guess you guys had to implement some proper maternity care.

seivan 14y ago
I suspect either people dislike the use of the word retarded in a offensive way, or they didn't get that you meant retarded as in "delayed". I like to think you were downvoted because they didn't grasp you meant delayed or behind progress :)
- VeejayRampay 14y ago
  Nah I meant retarded. And people are right to downvote it, I shouldn't have used that kind of language. It only goes to pollute the message which was in essence that the religious grip in Ireland has been a very detrimental factor in the progress towards proper health care for women in the country. Sorry if I offended anyone, it was wrong.

netcan 14y ago

Your entitlement to pay and superannuation during maternity leave depends on the terms of your contract of employment. Employers are not obliged to pay women on maternity leave. You may qualify for Maternity Benefit which is a Department of Social Protection payment you have sufficient PRSI http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/maternity_leave.html http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_r...

fuzzix 14y ago
Ah, seems I misread the info. An artifact of commenting at 6am.

hect0r 14y ago

By forcing employers to pay women six months maternity leave, it means that the cost of employing a woman of child-bearing age relative to a man is much higher and hence, all things being equal, the economically rational approach is to discriminate against women in hiring and promotion. This is just one of the many unintended consequences of government interference; the other, of course, is the minimum wage which is a particularly nefarious and wicked concept that results in the unskilled being kept unemployed and economically disadvantaged.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nodata 14y ago
That's short sighted: if you discriminate against women, who will give birth to the men?
- hect0r 14y ago
  If I am an employer in a society where, for each birth, the government mandates six month minimum paid maternity leave. I am hiring for a particular role and have two candidates of equivalent skill with the only difference being one is female and of child-bearing age. Which would you hire? The female may get pregnant and impose two costs on my company: firstly, the cost of maternity leave and, secondly, the cost of finding and training a temporary replacement for a minimum of six months. The rational thing is to hire the male to mitigate this risk since the costs will be lower and productivity assumed to be higher over term of employment. A better solution is for governments to not force such things but allow companies to negotiate freely with employees. Some may decide to offer extended maternity leave as a differentiator and to attract and retain female talent. But if they do so, they are doing so with coercion and for rational reasons.
  - sopooneo 14y ago
    I may be wrong, but I think you are double counting the cost of the maternity leave. The cost to the company is the cost of finding/training/paying a temp. The cost of paying the woman her salary while she is gone would have still occurred if she wasn't gone. Or am I missreading? You would include lost productivity due to a less effective temp worker I suppose. My general response to letting companies negotiate freely is that it seems important, but potentially destructive at it's extreme. I think there should be certain minimum labor standards applied to all employers so that no one employer is at an economic disadvantage by treating their workers humanely. Regarding such minimum requirements including six months of paid maternity leave I'm not sure how I feel.

saosebastiao 14y ago

Maternity Leave elsewhere is typically a government operated insurance program. They typically are not 100% salary, and the burden of paying the employee falls on the insurance program. Since we don't have an insurance program, paid maternity leave is a pretty big deal, as the company fronts all the costs, including the replacement/temp.

rmc 14y ago

Is it also true that there is no minimum amount of annual leave allowance in the US? You have to negotiate it? Correct. Unlike the EU, the US has no minimum holidays. however ¾s or so of US employees have holidays. For white collar workers, you're almost certainly guaranteed holidays (from what I know). Not to suggest Ireland is ahead of the curve here I was talking to some Germans a few years ago. They were shocked to discover we only had 20 holiday days. You get 30 in Germany. They didn't know what they'd do with only 20. Fun excersive: Look at the list of EU countries by how much paid holiday time they give. Look at the lowest countries. Then look at the countries that are being bailed out by other EU countries. :P