Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt’s report for the Center for Economic Policy and Research, “No-Vacation Nation,” explores how different America is from the rest of the world’s industrialized countries when it comes to vacation:
The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation. European countries establish legal rights to at least 20 days of paid vacation per year, with legal requirement of 25 and even 30 or more days in some countries. Australia and New Zealand both require employers to grant at least 20 vacation days per year; Canada and Japan mandate at least 10 paid days off. The gap between paid time off in the United States and the rest ofthe world is even larger if we include legally mandated paid holidays, where the United States offers none, but most of the rest of the world’s rich countries offer between five and 13 paid holidays per year.
In the absence of government standards, almost one in four Americans have no paid vacation and no paid holidays. According to government survey data, the average worker in the private sector in the United States receives only about nine days of paid vacation and about six paid holidays per year: less than the minimum legal standard set in the rest of world’s rich economies . . . (p.2)
So What?
According to the report, not only does the United States provide far fewer vacation days to workers than the other comparable countries, in practice American employers also distribute the paid vacation days unequally. The so-called vacation gap between lower-wage and higher-wage workers amounts to six days per year.
- Have you ever felt that you were unable to take the vacation time your employer provided because of the culture of that organization or because of another factor?
- With few vacation days and technology that allows workers to remain connected to their work even on days off or outside of office hours, it is increasingly difficult for Americans to separate work from the other areas of life or to set aside time to focus on other matters. Do you regularly set aside time to disengage from work? If so how often? How do you do so?
- How does your faith influence your understanding of work? of the need for time away from work?