Higher minimum wage and longer vacations?

[matai]

How does our country compares with the rest of the world? Could businesses afford to pay for longer vacations rather the standard 4%?

It looks like the answer is: yes!

Here's a list of European countries and their MINIMUM vacations time paid by employers:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cong%C3%A9s_pay%C3%A9s

[Bsuds]

A little research shows that several of those listed are not in the best fiscal shape.
So what does that suggest?

[maryjane48]

yea

[matai]

A little research shows that several of those listed are not in the best fiscal shape.
So what does that suggest?

That's because they have too many "social" government programs... nothing to do with private businesses offering 30 days vacation!

[WeatherWoman]

This concept is very hard on small businesses whom won't be able to compete with corporation when the prices of their services and goods have to increase by 30 percent.

[my5cents]

Or we could follow the US minimum, model : Zero

[driveangry]

My employees are immediate family, *bleep* me off and get immediate vacation time.

[JLives]

Or we could follow the US minimum, model : Zero

No thank you. They are not a country I would like us to emulate in any way.

[kgcayenne]

The Netherlands grants 31.5 days. I wonder why they aren't present on that there listy-list.

Canada has a mandatory 2-week vacation period for the first five years, after that it is bumped up to 3 weeks' vacation time. Funny thing, I haven't been on a vacation since 2006; we use up a good chunk of our vacation time on the office closure over the Christmas holidays, and the rest is a day here a couple days there.

What is a vacation like again?

[Captain Awesome]

As much as I like vacation, I wouldn't know what to do with 30 days of it.

[kgcayenne]

Another question, what defines the 'days'? Here, 'two weeks' is equivalent to 10 working days when considering that our workweek is 'supposed to' be five days. If Canadian vacation time were taken at one time, it works out to 14 linear days off, so wouldn't it also depend on what defines each country's work week.

Time off is healthy for people. Family is healthy for people.

[JLives]

Vacation makes for more productive workers. I'm at three weeks now and take one in the summer, one in the spring and one over Christmas. I usually take my summer one the first week of August so I can include the stat. We camped for 4 days and then I still had a week off when I came home.

[hobbyguy]

The only country on the list that has a truly competitive economy is Germany. However, in context, it is likely that Germany can not be competitive without the Euro fiddle (a devalued currency for Germany).

That said, vacations of longer duration can be effective if properly applied. I put the effective limit at 5 weeks. 2 weeks in summer, and 1 week each other season. The general Canadian system where you start at 2 weeks (earned, not given) and scale up over time (typically an extra week every 5 to 8 years) is a good balance. The trade off for business is that employees with long experience do add value (exception - the odd one will have one year of experience twenty times). Business gets employee loyalty by recognizing that experience matters. Pretty hard for someone who has worked up to 5 weeks holidays not to consider the holiday issue if they are looking at deserting to the competition.

I know, strict "bean counters" won't see that.

Minimum wages are a separate issue. Philosophically, the minimum defines what we consider as the lowest acceptable standard of living. "Living wage" calculations are a better attempt, but somewhat flawed way of looking at the issue. If the minimum wage is too low - you won't get workers to bother. Or you will get employees but not workers.

I suppose the best and most proven thing about wage levels is the Henry Ford attitude, where you should pay your workers enough that they can afford to buy your products.

[my5cents]

There are also many variables in vacation time off. I'm retired now, but when I worked, my job was such that most of the work I didn't do when I was on vacation, I had to do when I got back, or I had to do extra before I left on vacation.

I had over 6 weeks of time off a year, but regularly was paid out for a lot of it because I couldn't "afford" (meaning not get the work done) to take 4 or 6 weeks off at a time.

I was paid well for what I did, but any time I took off, I paid for in catching up in a big way.

When friends and family who had jobs where, for example they were clerks, had no residual work to follow-up on and when they took a week or two or three off, actually had just that.

[kgcayenne]

That is my predicament also. It's just not worth the stress of taking more than a day or two off at once.