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How many days annual leave in the US?

mayerling

mayerling

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
2,357
I was wondering if anybody could give me an average of how many days people have off in the US.

I'm a researcher at a UK university and the average here for somebody who does research is 27-30 days a year (excluding public holidays). I think it's probably that much in the civil service as well.

However, there's a chance FI and I might be relocating to the US soon and I was wondering what the average is over there. I get the impression from talking to FI's family that it's considerable less, and I'm worried about how long I could take off to visit my family over here.

Maybe I'm just overthinking things...
 
Mayerling,

I am in the Uk too. I don't know exact figures because it depends on each individuals circumstances, but from what I have heard the holiday situation in the US is considerably less favourable than it is in the UK. I am sure some of our stateside friends will advise you but I think it would be best to get the details from your partners future employers. That way you can make an informed choice.

I hope its good news!

Anyway the holiday entitlement may well be outweighed by access to all those fabulous US diamond dealers!!! :appl:
:wavey:
 
I started out getting 3 weeks of personal leave a year - 15 days. That has to cover vacation, personal issues, and illness also, so not all that great, and the amounts you can carry over from year to year are fairly small. I now accrue a bit more - 17 days a year, but still not great compared to what I used to get 20 years ago, when I accrued separate vacation and sick totals. I would say that the average has been going down. When you add in holidays - several of which many other industries do not typically get - I get 10 more days.

Federal employees here get the best benefits by far, usually more than double the average worker. But that isn't the norm out in the real world.
 
I don't live in the US, but when I worked for an American company on the island (which follows US mainland policies) the standard was 14 days for all employees. I was a manager at the time and thought that was pretty low. The standard everywhere else on the island is 27 days for managers, not including sick/off/public holidays.
 
FI works for a large bank and has pretty reasonable vacation/personal/sick. He has 21 days, not including national holidays. However, I think he has more than most because he is mandated to take 10 business days at one time due to SEC regulations.
 
I have 15 vacation days and I believe 12 sick/personal days. I can't take all 15 vacation days at once though.

My husband who works for a foreign bank, has something like 30 vacation days and there's no limit on sick. His company's home office is in Germany and they follow the European "guidelines" on vacation days.
 
I have 25 days PTO (paid time off), which I can use for any reason (vacation, personal, sick). This is my first year at the company and after a certain number of years (five, I think) I get 30 days. My assistant, who has been here longer but is not at an officer level, gets I think 20 days. So our PTO is based on officer level within the company and years of service.
 
I'd guess that 2-3 weeks to start is the norm. That's what my non-teacher friends got when they began their careers. Now some are up to 4-6 weeks I think. I'm a teacher, so my annual leave is different. We get 3 personal days and and 10 sick days I think, but we also get plenty of school vacation time throughout the year (holidays, around 1.5 weeks for Christmas, a week in Feb., a week in April, and summers).
 
For those living in the U.S, can you take all your vacation days at once? I can't. My husband, like Megumic's fiance is required to take 2 weeks (10 days) off at once because of SEC regulations but other than that, he can't take the remainder in one shot.

My friends and family in Europe, can take all their vacation days at once (regardless of which country they're in). Here, it seems to be much more strict and employers won't let you take 3 weeks at a time. At least from what I've seen.
 
I get 6 sick days (three must be doctor verified) and up to 20 days vacation time (though I can only get that much after three years of service, right now I have 12). Most of my friends have 14 vacation days. My husband gets two weeks (10 days), though we are hoping that will increase as he has only been with this company about 6 months.

I agree, vacation time is nil in the US! My dad has been with his company for 25 years and just finally worked up to 15 paid vacation days. Some companies can be stingy!


Aside: first post with new PS. Weird!
 
ksinger said:
I started out getting 3 weeks of personal leave a year - 15 days. That has to cover vacation, personal issues, and illness also, so not all that great, and the amounts you can carry over from year to year are fairly small. I now accrue a bit more - 17 days a year, but still not great compared to what I used to get 20 years ago, when I accrued separate vacation and sick totals. I would say that the average has been going down. When you add in holidays - several of which many other industries do not typically get - I get 10 more days.

Federal employees here get the best benefits by far, usually more than double the average worker. But that isn't the norm out in the real world.
Click to expand...

Wow! That's so little. I'm fairly low on the food chain but I get 27 days for vacation, and separate sick leave, personal days, etc.
 
Well, it seems vacation time in the US really doesn't compare with the situation in Europe. I guess it's something to think about.

Thank you all for your replies.
 
I get 20 vacation days, 1 personal day, and unlimited "incidental" days, which would be sick days or really any emergency event. Only people with a lot of seniority can take more than one week at a time, so I have to work until a day before the wedding so I can actually have a week off for the honeymoon (even though I'll still have over 10 days at that point.) :rolleyes:

My company really tries to get everyone to take a week every quarter, instead of all going in the spring/summer. For us, it's not like we can just leave the desk for a week and come back to whatever work is there - they have to send in someone to replace us so they can't let too many people go at once.
 
Following Elle's point, regardless of how many weeks vacation an employee has in the US, in my experience, it would be very rare for an employee to take off more than 7-10 days at a time. With that said, this may well be very different in a university setting. I've seen friends in post-doc research positions taking 2 weeks off at a time with no problem. Given the huge numbers of international employees at universities, I assume policies differ from what is standard at US companies. For sure, and very sadly, we (those of us employed by US corporations) are not taking 3 weeks+ off at a time.
 
I spent a year working in the corporate world right after college and I had 14 days of paid time off and 3 sick days per year.

Now I'm a teacher (community college) and I have 15 days to take off. I can use up to five of those days for personal time. If I teach a full load in the summer I'm given an additional three days off, and we have a four day summer work week so no work on Fridays if I do teach summer school. We have six holidays off during the school year including Thanksgiving. In addition, we get one week off for spring break, four for winter break, and three months for summer break. I realize that I have much more time off than my friends who don't teach.
 
DH has been working for over 30 years and last job change he negotiated his vacation time. It would have been 5 days for the first year, 10 days for years 3-5, and 15 days after that for years 6-10. He negotiated 15 days for the first 3 years and 20 days for years 4-5, and 25 days for over 5 years (the company actually went directly to him with an offer. DH wasn't looking). I believe over 10 years he will get 30 days. He now has 5 weeks (25 days) vacation since he has been there over 5 years and that doesn't include 10 holidays per year.
 
I am a NYC public school teacher, we only work about 185 days per year. Of those days we are allowed 10 days of absence per year, with up to 3 personal days included in those 10. If you are out 3 or more days in a row you must have a doctor's note and if you go over 10 per year they will dock your pay unless you have days you didn't use up from years prior, if that's the case as long as you have a note it's ok. Even though they say it's ok you will get a letter in your file for excessive absences. It's very hard to not be able to take off when you want to. The summers are great though!
 
I currently get 15 PTO days a year, plus 11 national holidays. In May I begin accruing 21 days, and if I hit 10 years with this company I will get 28 PTO days (plus holidays). But I work in the American office of a European company, so I get more vacation than the average worker (from what I've seen).
 
So many jobs have different answers for this. My husband in the USA has 11 "holiday" days he can take whenever (but usually on like thanksgiving or christmas) plus 4 weeks and an 8 week paid sabbatical every 7 years as well as as many sick days as he needs, within an unspecified reason. As an expat he has 4 weeks plus 3 weeks of leave plus local chinese holidays.

I do NOT think that this would be a big part of my decision to live overseas - it's quite an adventure... but I'm also certain that having days to travel around that new country are important too!
 
I know my mom has 6 weeks vacation/ PTO/ Sick days, but a week of that was carried over from last year (as she does every year.. lol)

Fiance has 18 days (including sick days) I believe? He's been with his company for almost two years. His first year he got barely anything.

Neither of those numbers include national holidays or work parties (my moms work will shut the office down early and go out and do things together- like boating, lunch, gambling,.. yadda)
 
I get 4 weeks vacation (20 days) and unlimited sick time. BUT I have a billable hours requirement (I'm an attorney) which effectively means I have to work nights and weekends to make up the time and often end up working while on vacation. None of my time carries over to the next year.
 
I've been with my employer for almost 11 years. I get 15 days of vacation time, and 5 days of personal/sick time (so 20 days total). They're usually pretty flexible about when we can take vacation time. For example, I could probably take all 15 of my vacation days at one time, if nothing else is going on at that time and if I give them PLENTY of notice. (But they wouldn't want us to do that every year . . . just once in a while.) And we can't carry unused days over to the following year, unless there's some kind of special situation (like if one of us was having surgery and had to be off for a long recovery period or something like that).

The first year I was here, I think I only got 5 vacation days and 5 personal/sick days. Years 2 through 5, I got 10 vacation days and 5 personal/sick days. After I'd been here for 5 years, they bumped me up to 15 vacation days and 5 personal/sick days, and that's where I've been ever since. ::)
 
Typically, people get 2 weeks of vacation, and then the sick/personal days vary depending on the company. I am a teacher, so we get a lot of time off... i'm not a very good example though. DH gets 2 weeks off per year. When he's sick, he can use vacation time, a sick day, or just not get paid. He works at Best Buy, and they are always accruing vacation hours, so they replenish as he takes them.
 
My husband just started a new job, so since he's new, he won't be getting vacation time any time soon. He's working at a company he used to work at (in his old position, actually), and when he was there 4 years ago, his PTO accrued over time. Unless the company changed things since he's been away, for every 8 hour day he works, he accrues a certain # of hours as PTO.
 
It sounds like working in the US isn't as nice as it is in Europe in terms of leave. Although I guess it's better in terms of pay (from what I hear).
 
I've had leave a few different ways since I started my career.

My first job was on PTO (paid time off) and while I can't remember how many we got, we could carry days over. It was SWEET! I think it equaled about 4 weeks leave- which included sick and vacation.

Job 2- I got two weeks of vacation to start plus one week of sick time, but the sick time was accrued over time. You couldn't carry vacation time over year to year, but you could carry sick time over. At 3 years of service you got 3 weeks vacations, at 5 years you got 4 weeks and at 10 years you got 5 weeks. I was there 8 years, so had 4 weeks of vacation and nearly 4 weeks of accrued sick time when I left.

Job 3 (current job): We are on PTO that includes all holidays, vacation and sick time. We get 24 (?) days a year. It works out to 19 days give or take for vacation and sick. I'm rarely, if ever, sick, so this works out well for me. I generally take a week in spring, a week in later summer and a scattering of other days. Love it.
 
I'm curious about whether people lose their PTO if they do not use it in a calendar year. How does it work at everyone's company?

As teachers we can accrue up to two years' worth of sick days, and then apply them as years of service towards retirement. That means that we can technically retire two years early, earn a full salary for those two years, and then our pension kicks in after that. This is a good thing because it's hard to take time off as a teacher, so I rarely do and would otherwise lose all of it.
 
I can't carry anything over. If I don't take vacation, I'll just get paid for it by the end of the year.
 
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