I live in the midwestern United States, and it’s really sad. I know people who take pride in never using their vacation days.
Honestly when I run into such a person I think it’s a coping mechanism.
Yeah, seems like it. Same with people who brag about only getting a few hours of sleep each night.
Very interesting. I was in the military, which was pretty much a smorgasbord of the US and not once did I ever hear of anyone burning their time off. Every boss I worked for begged us to take all of our time off.
Midwest here and even in places where using leave is encouraged there are always a few who are proud about never taking sick time when they are sick and always acting like taking a vacation is a necessary evil. A lot of people have bought into the idea that people live to work, not work to live.
It is not as bad as it was a decade ago though.
Interesting to see Japan up there. Typically you only hear about their terrible work/life balance. I can only assume their many days off are for cultural festivals and national holidays?
Mh??? I always heard that Japan gives very little vacation days due to having a lot of holidays and its also expected to gift a few of these days to their employer. This statistic confuses me. Can someone japanese help out?
Japanese people are serious about their holidays and typically take golden week, which is a full week off in May.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Week_(Japan)
A few years before the pandemic I visited Japan during Golden week, and Tokyo was basically empty. There were no cars on the street, there was no traffic, and the trains were only half full. Businesses were just closed, and I visited the financial district among other places; however Akihabara and other tourist districts were still very busy.
Japanese have a total of 16 official national holidays vs the US 11. However, people actually take them off, since many companies just close down entirely for those holidays, unlike say President’s Day or Juneteenth in the US where everyone but banks and schools are still open.
And all of this is on top of their actual vacation time.
This website better explains it:
https://www.tokhimo.com/post/how-annual-leave-in-japan-work?lang=en
