http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/work.life.balance/chart/
Finland has more total time off but the weather is much nicer in France in February
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I’d love to know where they come out with 10 paid public holidays for the US. Maybe if you are a governement employee, but in the private sector I get 6 - Christmas, New Years, July 4, Labor Day, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving.
Also, in Canada, while they listed the bare minimum, nobody I know of only gets two weeks after 10 years on the same job - minimum three, some companies 4 by then.
But yeah - France is looking pretty good
I was a non-unionized hourly wage worker ( in Canada ) for the first 12 years of my working life, never got more than 2 weeks vacation.
Parts of Canada are moving backwards, in Ontario for example anyone who works in IT is considered a “professional” ( like doctors and lawyers ) and their employer does not have to pay overtime ( some still do, many do not ).
Personally, I’d be willing to put in 60 hour weeks from Oct - April ( when the weather is crappy up here ) if they’d give me June, July and August off as paid vacation.
Wow - sorry about the 12 years man - I never saw that when I worked in Canada (like over 25 years of my life). I always had 3 weeks within 5 years of service.
I know about the IT - I got a promotion and went from getting OT to not - while I got a raise I still earned less than when I had OT.
Just as bad now that I am in the US, though they start you out with less vacation - as an IT professional I started with three weeks paid vacation in Canada, down here you start at two weeks.
“in Ontario for example anyone who works in IT is considered a “professional” ( like doctors and lawyers ) and their employer does not have to pay overtime ( some still do, many do not ).”
My previous boyfriend works in IT, salary – in the US. He didn’t have any idea that the salespeople in his company were going to “sell” the IT department’s services for under market value, and sell things the company didn’t do yet. So the whole IT department was always scrambling to fulfill what sales had sold. As ‘salary’ shows, it doesn’t matter what a contract is worth, if the client isn’t paying for the technicians’ time… SO, that meant that he was always under extreme duress with many hours, lots of what someone else would call ‘overtime’, and, last I had watched, they said he couldn’t take his vacation because he couldn’t be spared from the company, even for a week. So he didn’t get his weeks in 2006; I don’t know if he ever got 1 week (in a row) when 2007 rolled over. He was occasionally given a day here or there - to make up for his coming in on weekends - sometimes for 13 hours straight.
The saddest part was that he felt trapped, overworked, and stressed - all the time. He thought that he had to stay in that company because they were flexible if he needed to come in late (due to an appointment), but he always had to stay late to make up for it. As I watched, his personal time was always at a deficit, although he was a quick-working, brilliant IT solutions person, troubleshooter, sys admin, and firewall admin. Not getting vacation was so saddening for me, ‘for him’. I think he was even too exhausted to create a new resume even if he did want another job.
I think that the stress, lack of downtime, and frustration was one of main causes to our breakup 
I work in Montreal, and as a graduate student I get 3 weeks of paid vacation every year. My lab happens to be at a jewish hospital so I get all the stat holidays as well as all the jewish holidays off.
I think its pretty sweet deal.
Friends of ours who live in France just had a baby (she’s French, he’s American FWIW). She got the last 4 weeks before the baby was born off from work, paid, even though she had no complications and from an American perspective she was in perfect shape to keep working. Now, she gets 6 months of maternity leave at 75% of her pay rate, then another 6 months working part-time at the office but still receiving 75% of her salary. Pretty damn sweet to me.
Quebec is much more “worker friendly” than Ontario in every area except income tax.
I had the same deal as a grad student at U of T. Ontario is very employer determined.
Oh god. Everyone bitches about not making enough money then cry when they have to work.
I’m starting a new job next week. getting a pretty standard 9 days vacation to begin with…but get this, 20 public holidays. I can’t name 20 holidays. I must be getting Bush’s dog’s birthday off or something. Not complaining though; I’ll be working a 4 day week about every other week.
Only 6 holidays? Criminal.
I get:
New Year’s
MLK Day
President’s Day
Memorial Day
July 4th
Labor Day
Thanksgiving
day after Thanksgiving
Christmas
(sometimes day before/after Christmas)
Plus, 30 days/year PTO.
clm
You guys seriously get those few holidays? Over here I get 18 public holidays and 22 days annual leave.
When I worked in NY, I was still getting 20 days annual + public holidays.
You guys need better unions 