How many annual leave days do you get?

[Philociraptor]

What is the difference between a holiday and a vacation in America? Also specifying how many sick days you get seems strange, doesn't that just encourage people to take them if they need them or not. I have had one sick day in 5 years but who is to say i wont be ill for a few months at any moment.

Holiday = specific day of the year where everybody at your workplace is either off or gets paid that day on top of their work, vacation = personal time for you to take off; you choose when you take vacation, you don't choose holidays.

I'm with you on the sick days, should just be an honor system, with sickly employees being penalized when it comes to promotions, etc.

[Cherry Lane]

What is the difference between a holiday and a vacation in America?

American "vacation" = European "holiday"  (employee chooses when to use them, subject to employer approval)
American "holiday"  = European "national holiday", "public holiday", "bank holiday", etc. (fixed dates when the place of employment is closed)

Edit:  Never mind.  I see Philociraptor beat me to the response while my connection was being annoyingly slow.

[MoneyCat]

I work as a teacher.  In my state, teachers get ten sick days per year and three personal days per year and unused days of either kind rollover as additional sick days for the next year.  My work year is 185 days, because we also get holidays/weekends off and a two month unpaid furlough in July/August.  I typically don't use any sick days or personal days unless I am really seriously ill, because testing requirements are very high and any day I miss puts us farther behind our pacing schedule.

It used to be that sick days were accumulated and you could cash them out for $75 each when you retired as a thanks for not using them and costing the district $100/day for a substitute teacher instead.  However, the public is stupid and decided to cap sick day payouts at $10000, so now most teachers use months' worth of sick days right before they retire so they don't lose them and it ends up costing taxpayers a lot more money to hire substitutes for months and months, while the students don't get educated.

Teachers will probably have the number of sick days cut in the near future, because "Millennials have it too easy", say the Boomers who just lived easy lives with big fat pensions that we will never get.

[HappyIntrovert]

I've been with a large technology company for 26 years. I have 5 weeks (25 days) of vacation and 12 holidays, 8 of which are fixed and 4 are floating, meaning I can take them whenever I want.  Sick days are unlimited as far as I can tell, but I've been fortunate enough to have not taken any for as long as I can remember. All employees have 12 holidays, but those under 10 years have 3 weeks, and those over 10 have 4 weeks. They don't give 5 weeks any more, just to those of us who started before 2004.  I got 5 weeks after 20 years.

[oldtoyota]

I started with four weeks for both sick and vacation.

After three years, it increases to five weeks.

We have 10-12 national holidays on top of that.

So, 30-32 days off and 5 more when I reach three years.

[pdxvandal]

I left my corporate job this year and began at a start-up company two months later. Not a lot of room for salary negotiation so I asked for three weeks' paid vacation off the bat. Worth more than an extra 5k to me. I also have one week's sick time and 8-9 holidays. Between vacation earlier this year with old company, unemployment and time off with the new company, I'll have 3 months' paid time off in 2014 overall. Next year will be far less. :(  Good FIRE practice anyway. :)

[Fi(re) on the Farm]

I'm really fortunate, after 7 years at my job I get 20 vacation days, 5 personal days, 13 sick days, 2 floating holidays and 9 paid holidays. You can accrue 40 vacation days which you cash out when you leave or retire. You can accrue 120 sick days which you can use to pay your health insurance premiums in retirement, it also counts toward your length of employment for your pension. I use as little sick time as possible because it gets me closer to my retirement target date!

[Sparky]

I get zero vacation, holiday and sick days off. I however get paid for the missed vacation and holidays in my pay check. It's very normal for us in industrial construction to be paid like that, as our employment is considered temporary.

However, we usually get as much time off as you want. The companies are usually pretty good about giving time off when you need it or if they don't, we just find another job....

[Kyle Schuant]

I get 0 days of annual leave. Or 100 or so, depending on how you look at it. No sick pay, or unlimited if you prefer.

I'm a personal trainer, our gym shifts are all casual - no permanent shifts, they change and can be given or taken away at any time without notice. And then when people pay for personal training, well I just get paid by the session. Australian law mandates that if you're casual, you get a 25% loading on your pay in lieu of normal leave entitlements. So I can take a day off whenever I want, but I'll get paid less as a result. The gym shifts will be gone, I can usually reschedule the PT sessions.

I'm working on building up the number of people I train from home in my garage to reduce the commute from 20 minutes to 20 steps.

I'm also not working 40hr/week, just 20-25hr. This reduces my need for actual leave, the hours I'm working aren't enough to build up stress I need to get rid of in a holiday. Rather than work hard and then retire early, you can work easy and keep it up. Which if you like what you're doing is not too bad.

Anyway, that's another way to look at leave.

[MrsPotts]

I am a public school employee.  Two weeks off at Christmas, a week in April, and from the second week of June through the third week of August  (11 weeks.). I have three personal days which I typically cash out, and 12 days a year of sick leave, which I can accumulate and cash out at retirement. 

[Bigote]

365 or 366, depending on the year. 

[TomTX]

15 days of annual leave - that will go up to 16.5 in a few months when I hit 10 years of service
12 days of sick leave
10-14 holidays, depending on how weekends fall.

I do also get comp time if I work more than 8 hours in a day. Usually this is when I travel for work. May as well stay on the jobsite a couple more hours instead of the hotel.

[stripey]

Australian university.  On paper, my working arrangements look great:

- 36-hour work week
- 20 days annual leave (these roll over, but they start getting antsy when these go above 25)
- public holidays
- days between Christmas and New Year when the campus shuts down
- not personally sure how many sick days, but they roll over, and I currently have close to five months accrued)
- option to buy an additional 20 days, in which case it's use or lose
- if you are research active (I am), option for research leave one term every three years, and reduced teaching obligations one term out of three years

However.  The 36-hour week is laughable - 60 hours, excluding my personal research time, is standard.  In practice, I generally end up needing to take my annual leave to complete major writing projects - these are nominally part of my work plan, but, in practice, no one leaves me alone to do anything unless I'm "on leave".  Research leave is never fully honoured - it is still useful, and I'm glad to have access to it, but it just means I have thirty hours a week of nonsense on my schedule, rather than sixty (where writing gets done /after/ the nonsense, in what is meant to be my own time).  The Christmas shutdown period also doesn't apply to me right now, as I'm the only person legally able to do a specific job that must be done over that period. Public holidays make no difference to my schedule, other than that I don't have to physically front up to class.

I'm currently considering buying the extra 20-days leave, so that I get some actual time off, in addition to the four weeks I use up on writing...  I have a new manager, however, so I'm currently seeing if he's true to his word that my writing schedule will be respected this term - I'm skeptical, but all things being equal I'd just as soon be paid for publishing, since that's meant to be a substantial part of my job.

What is genuinely good, however, are the maternity benefits - these I wouldn't be able to match elsewhere, and they are the reason I'm still here.  I haven't had to claim sick leave, but certainly the allocation seems generous if I need it.  And I have enormous flexibility about when I work - really useful with two young kids, and another reason I haven't more aggressively sought out other options.

Yup. If I ever become pregnant/have a family I will ensure I am employed by an Australian university at the time. One of the perks. That and the 17% super. Not sure it's outweighed by what is the laughably "37.5 work week" that is nearly always so much more...

Edit: de-identified a little more.

[KatieSSS]

Related and oh so sad, IMO:

Recently, my boss was talking about a "use it or lose it" vacation days scenario. Our company allows you to carry over a certain amount of vacation, but I guess my boss' former employer did not. He said that it is a good thing that we don't get as much vacation here as he had in his old job, because he was constantly losing vacation days because he "couldn't possibly" take them all. That just made me sad. I'm taking every single vacation day I possibly can and if I'm ever in a job where that is not possible, please, someone, put me out of my misery!