Why Don't Americans' Vacations Measure Up to Europeans'?

Simply put, the Europeans pay for them in taxes.

Europe wants lots of vacation time, early retirement, and lots of government sponsored benefits. They pay for that in their taxes and VAT taxes, etc.

The flip side of all that is that it is becoming too hard to pay for all of that (look at France and the row that raising the retirement age two years cost) and this has brought all of the austerity programs in an effort to keep those countries from going over the financial cliff. Germany and France have just announced that bond holders and investors would be expected to bear the costs of future bailouts of EU member states in the future. That has gone over like a lead brick.

Americans generally are not prepared to pay those types of costs for those benefits.

Socialist Governments means High Taxes. Then the Unions get with the Goverment and demand 6 weeks vactions. Pretty soon they run out of money and you see riots on the news because the governments try to scale back the perks.

France is not the only one... another I know of is Austria (NOT Australia, I don't know about their finances)...

Austria has socialized themselves into financial disaster. They are in very dire straits trying to pay for all the "benefits" their countrymen have -- and they have HIGH taxes.

The European vacataion is expensive... in the taxes the people pay for the privilege of longer vacations.

I didn't login BEFORE posting this... Sorry!

I think for a lot of people, vacations cost a lot of money. Americans live from paycheck to paycheck whereas Europeans budget their finances to allow them to take longer vacations. Americans tend to "want it now", not later. Naturally this is a generalization as I haven't polled everyone in the world.

I think the original post was about the length of paid vacation time that European companies give versus the average of 2 weeks per year in the US.

Basically, it another New York Times short hit piece on capitalism.

"...and instead foolishly believed they could get richer still by speculating in real estate. (the Japanese had already demonstrated for all but the most thick skulled that this doesn't work)..."

The mechanism that started the shark feeding frenzy was the ridiculous lending practices (initially dictated by Congress) that would allow both qualified and unqualified buyers alike the ability to buy homes with no money down, or in many cases, get loans exceeding 100% of the property sale price.

What would you expect to happen? It's like going out to a street corner and giving out candy for free. The people taking the candy are not so much the fools.

The fools turned out to be the American taxpayer when their taxes were used to bail out all the bad loans.

To add insult to injury, the actual people responsible quickly ducked into the back room phone booths, donned capes and emerged proclaiming they were going to be the heros to save the day and many people bought that, too!

But you can get extremely rich by speculating in Real Estate, you just have to have enough insight and knowledge to know when to get out, just like black jack.

"in France the government fears the people, while here in the US the people fear the government." Why do we, or any one else for that matter, fear a government that is supposedly representing us? It is because the government has overstepped it's bounds. The Constitution was established the way it was because the Founding Fathers recognized that the nature of man is to exert power and influence over someone who isn't as strong. They set the boundries of the government so that wouldn't take place. Where we are in the United States is a group of people who have drastically disfigured what started out as an awesome form of government "by and for the people".

The reason we are in dire straits here in America is because we have abandoned the principles by which we were founded, i.e. the value of life (without which nothing else matters or applies), individual liberty, personal accountability, the rule of law, hard work with it's accompanying rewards, the sovereignty of this country etc.

The farther we get away from those and other principles the more prone we are to disaster, financially, spiritually, socially and judicially.

When we as citizens are allowed to function without a restrictive government with it's "boot on our throat" (to use the term of an Obama adviser), the economy will thrive, businesses will be able to provide good wages for the work rendered. They will be able to provide the good wages because there are people with money to buy their goods and services and pay for vacations they want to take. Capitalism is a great economic system when it is operated by people of character and integrity. If people don't choose to operate that way, then it is the job of the courts to step in, not the government.

We as a nation have contributed enormously to the global world, albeit sometimes bad (a degraded morality) along with the good. And it is because of the work ethic and ideology of a free enterprise system where each person is responsible for their own success, not to be dependent on a government to provide for all the needs of it's individual citizens. There are times when the reprentative government needs to help but that was laid out in the Constitution to be the exception rather than the rule.

Hmm, are you implying the moral character of the US is somehow less than it has been in the past, or just that we have greater influence on the world? Because I am sure the moral character has not declined, especially when you look at the 19th century, the gold and silver rush activities, activities in cow towns along the catle drives, range wars, water wars, railroad industries land acquisition and expansion realted actions, coal mining, slavery, women suffrage, alcoholism rates (alone those should say something), indigenous peoples and related agreements, the opium dens, etc.. The immoralities committed during these occurences in US history were far worse than anything seen now. Dang Andrew Jackson committed by definition High Treason by invading Spain to kill indians, and hung some English citizens while there (without due process), all without authorization from the President or any senior officer in the military. It made him so popular he became President. I suspect you may be pining for an era that actually never existed in this country but has become a kind of mythological belief amongst many as they recall their youth as children and what they were allowed to know about back then.

And after all this the modal US citizen feels superior over the world.

But as cited earlier: education is the issue: the modal US citizen simply is not aware of the history not the world across the borders.

And those who decided to reduce the education to the actual level knew why they did it: an educated soldier is worth nothing.

Sadly, there is truth to that.

Europeans tend to know American history better than some Americans and most Americans know even less history of Europe - let alone what countries are there. ;-/

don't expect us to keep up with the country list here

It's all the 'stans that get me.

Maybe Americans work longer hours and take shorter vacations and fewer holidays because they actually like to work?

Hi Warner,

Are you kidding or we can laugh together? We all are from the other side of the Atlantic with a few exceptions. Still laughing!

Something serious: The European companies pay the vacations but deduct from the salaries. It's the same as here. Another but really serious point: European companies pay universities for their young employees. I did in the 50s and 60s. University "Arts et Metiers" is financed by companies for their employees. You work and you go to class at 5 or 6 pm, four to six times a week. This is a difference! Everywhere: We work, they work, and we all work a certain way to make a living. Chinese people work 6 days a week and sometimes 12 hours a day as we did 50 or 75 years ago. This is evolution.

No harm. It was good to know who we are. It's good to laugh and being at work, Gil.

Not really evolution if the countries in europe arenow having to reverse those developing trends by increasing working hours a week, less paid vacation and time off, and increasing retirement ages. Americans tend to work more hours per week on average, take less vacation and retire later. The per capita GNP is much higher in the US, and american earn substantially more gross income. Because they can afford it most americans also tend to expect better accomodations than Europeans, when they do vacation. So to get one benefit you must give soemthing else up

I am a retired employer. When I was employed, vacation time was always a problem. It cost the employer for the employee to not contribute to his place of employment. We paid wages and benefits for the 3 weeks they were away. At the same time we did not get any benefit for the company. Except, I always felt employees should have a break from the job to rejuvenate their efforts. But why does everyone want a vacation when we are busiest? A winter vacation was always easier to arrange compared to a summer vacation.

Six weeks of vacation would be nice but I know we would never have been able to afford that sort of thing without raising the cost of goods beyond competitive. I often think that in today's slower economy; wouldn't extra vacation be better and hire more workers. It would only work if the employee on vacation took a leave of absence for those weeks extended beyond 2 or 3 weeks. Perhaps the pokey fund should pay for extra leave and allow businesses to hire more employees to share the slow employment period. Current rules where I am do not allow businesses to do that type of co-sharing of "vacation" time. Spreading the work around may raise the skill level but I see problems in that regard with training.

And, Oh yeah, retirement is great..52 weeks a year.

My take on Europeans vs American's vacations is this:

EU is much more Family oriented than American's life style.

EU takes their time off with their families seriously

Americans do not. That said, it has much to do with Greedy American based Corporations and how they think about their workers. My last job I had 6 weeks per year vacation time. This job, I have 1 week, but also this is a new start up company.

Right now the future looks very bright for this start up. Time will tell for me with this company. Most American companies have X jobs and -X employees to do said jobs.

So Those American Companies give 1 week until you have been there till they feel you deserve more time off. Thankfully this is not all American corporate thinking, but 99% of them. American Corporations don't care that "you" have a family, all they care about is the bottom line and their greedy investors on Wall Street, and how much they can squeeze their workers to get their numbers up. EU on the other hand do care about their bottom line, but they care more about their people that work for them. So Corporate America, go jump off that tall bridge. You can start with Wall Street and work your way down to that icy water. Of course you have to take into account most American corporations have moved off shore and left 8,000,000 workers off line and destitude. Meanwhile thier numbers have increased and profits are through the roof. Not to mention millions in foreclosure, thank you Corporate America. But this is another story and unrelated to the vacation issue.

Looks like you are a good candidate for moving abroad.

Hi Hero,

Who made the economical collapse in the American soil? Wall Street! They push hard for more as I mentioned earlier but they are not producing anything. Wall Street is a cost for the Americans. Too mush after my opinion! We have to teach them to be productive as were the losers, the working class from many closed companies.

The CEOs of most banks and other heads are actually on vacation somewhere in warm and sony places because the actually unemployed workers made their perks and high salaries. Don't forget, many abroad will be the same in short period of time as is here today, Gil.

I think you are wrong. Wall Street absolutely has its problems and they need to be fixed, but the root of the problem you cite goes back to 1978 with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).

I have brought this up before, but the crux of our current economic problems are due to efforts by Congress to enact social engineering programs.

Specifically, in this case, the CRA forced lenders in increase the number of loans to individuals who were of high risk. This led to a pathological lending practice that continued to get worse. In effect, it was a ticking economic time bomb. The fuse was lit when there was a bubble in the real-estate market as waves of new home owners and would-be property speculators took out loans for for little or mo down money. When the real-estate market turned down that bubble collapsed.

Suddenly, huge numbers of people were underwater in their loans. In other words, they owed more than their properties were worth. This caused what would have been simply a market correction into an economic black hole.

The crash and burn in mortgage loans spilled over into the business sector when short term loans (those loans that business use for payroll and other expenses that are quickly paid back) dried up. The net effect of this was to force massive unemployment.

Before the short-term loan situation was corrected, businesses had already adjusted to the smaller labor force. As economic conditions worsened, businesses did not bring that labor force back. Rather, they began salting their profits and money away incase things got worse. This, in part, acted as a positive feedback and kept driving the economy deeper into a recession.

Now, let's look at your finger pointing at Wall Street. If you have an interest in economics you should spend more time studying economics than ranting. What you are saying is essentially that businesses have been getting greedy and therefore abusing their employees.

One big fact that disputes that theory can be found in the corporate profit reports that all public companies produce. You can also watch the actual stock prices and then look for specific reasons that were driving the changes in those stocks.

Since you are making a blanket statement about corporations it is reasonable to assume that the average stock prices and annual profits would be shooting through the roof. We don't see that in this case. Also, if the US corporations were making a killing (off the employee's backs) it would be reasonable to see huge foreign investments in US corporations. That's not happening.

I guess you could make the claim that the missing profits are embezzled by the CEOs you cited, but you might as well start buying tinfoil and wrapping it around your head. In neither case will anyone take you seriously and I doubt you can provide any proof of that anyway.

The idea that Wall Street does not produce anything is very myopic. The money that is earned by trades is the very money that is reinvested into the business economy. When the market dives, so does the capital used to sponsor business growth and new ventures. Not only that, but those profits drive your retirement funds and pensions.

So, Gil, while I empathize with your discontent, I think you are way off base. I am not saying that Wall Street does not have its share of problems, but your understanding of Wall Street and its contributions to the economy is incomplete and in some instance outright wrong.

I completely agree with you that the lending policies initiated the current economic meltdown. However, we are straying from the initial topic.

I am not sure what all this has to do with comparing vacations between Europeans and Americans. I have no doubt the Americans are a hard working lot, as I believe are us Canadians. The real problem is that when people want more than the GDP, the structural debt of the country increases leaving less money for holidays unless you add it to a credit card (metaphorically speaking). The Euros seem to be doing the same thing and in a more severe manner. Here is a list of foreign debt of different countries. I believe the table is self explanatory. Compare China and the problem glares at you. The USA is certainly not anywhere near the bottom.

The global problem is that this is a period of history that requires global stimulus and many countries in Europe are contracting rather than expanding. One country cannot stimulate the global economy. The US needs to add more but should get countries like Germany, England, and France on board. If all the countries contract, as seems to be where many countries are going, this recession will be protracted that much longer.

The Chinese have devalued their yuan and can afford to do that as they have little foreign debt. Instead they are using money to control vital resources throughout the world. I would suggest the USA devalue its dollar if the Chinese fail to do so to theirs. The idea of letting the market dictate the domestic economy is often correct, but now is the time for intervention. The US banks and industry is sitting on a lot of liquidity but that liquidity needs to get into the economy. Banks are sitting on 1.4 trillion dollars and something similar in industry. They are afraid of the economy and prefer the liquidity of cash on hand. If the government keeps making the economy liquid by stimulus the extra money will soon find its way into the economy. It is just that it must be done globally and get the chicken sh*t countries to conform.

With regard to vacations, I do plan to spend some of my liquid cash in the USA soon (Hawaii, I think). Once this recession is over, it would be nice to see some mechanism to allow for more vacation time for families. I am the pot calling the kettle black as I worked long times (years) without taking a vacation. I thought that if the pogey could be used to support extended vacations, we may have less unemployed and get better use of all workers. We could share jobs this way and reduce much unemployment. Counties seem to spend money on pogey anyway, why not use it to increase employment in a constructive manner.

I don't need the freedom and laissez faire lecture nor do I need a history lesson on work ethic of our forefathers. In turn I will refrain from commenting on social engineering as the boogie man.

Sorry. I didn't copy all the url

I think this is better.

Hi Hero,

Yes, I know that I am wrong. It always that way. However, I don't invest one single penny what Wall Street suggest to me and somone else. I only invest on "myself" because I know what I can do for me and others. I know my value. I have friends they lost all their life economy and when you are over 70s you have hard time to get back to "normal". I just repeat, Wall Street is a pure cost without any revenue. Also, just before the collapse, most of their employees made more money than you, and lost nothing except their jobs and many just momentarily.

Wall Street has only one function is to push companies to sell more and make more money. The market is limited but Wall Street doesn't care. You and other believers need to find those non-existent markets. Where is this extra market?

Again, invest in yourself and get back the value, your worth, Gil.

Hi Jim,

You are off topic but I agree with your comment because we forget our origine, not very faraway or distant. Standard of life between Europe and the US is very close if not similar. Good things from Europe, they eat slowly because they enjoy food compare to us, we swallow rapidly after we pay.

Family orientation is a major problem here. We don't care too much about our children.

Completely agree that Wall Street destroy American economy by pushing for more and more. Also, we developed the extreme "ego" and this reflect in small businesses graduation to good companies, products, services, and attitude towards its employees. A well rested and satis fied employee produce more and better than an exploited one, isn't it? This has to be changed, Gil.

It's a cultural issue, based as much in vestigial feudalism, the Protestant Reformation, and waging two world wars by the middle of the past century as it is in Socialism.

Europeans see government as a necessity for civilization's peaceful existence and an accustomed part of their lives. Rebels, sociopaths and freethinkers emigrated to the New World or died for their causes.

The Europe we know is post war. Many of their democracies are even younger than ours; their social systems are still experimental. It's a work in progress.

Europeans work to live. Americans live to work. It's a difference in focus.

Americans outproduce Europeans. Europeans outlive Americans. It's a difference in lifestyles.

Americans value productivity, Europeans value prosperity. It's a difference in upbringing.

American workers aren't psychologically capable of taking six weeks of vacation time. They wouldn't know what to do with it.

Americans hate to waste time, productivity suffers and it's bad for morale.

So you really believe that Americans outproduce Europeans.

I'm not so sure about that.

We have unions which are a bit closer to reality and what is really needed, that is where the difference is.

And Europeans do not exist: we are greek, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, German, Austrian, French, ....

And most of our governments are not socialistic. It is what anti governmental organisations like to make you think.

What is wrong with the fact that I can go to a doctor when I'm ill, he will treath me and later we will discuss on how to pay for it? (in fact I pay upfront)

What is wrong with some basic rules on how to fire people, and to look after them for the period they need to find new jobs?

The big difference is education: in Europe we choose to educate people and if the total bill is to high we cut in the military and ask a bit more from the workers.

And there is much to see here, we can spend our weeks of vacation without boredom. (in Belgium it's only 4 weeks, keep this in the back of your mind when you want to relocate)

Gotta give you credit for a vivid imagination!

yeah, but it doesn't pay the bills

Americans are Greek, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, German, Austrian, French, ...

Well, what do you know!

I think Goo hit the nail 99% on the head. There may be some argument of who outproduces who and which form of governance is better, but the fact is, they are just different.

Americans work hard and they generally do live to work. For those in Europe it is a little different.

Europeans tend to see their governments as a body that bestows rights onto their people.

Americans see themselves as individuals with rights and their government is beholden onto them (well, that's the way it is written).

They are a lot alike, but different. Europeans like to vacation in the Americas. Americans like to vacation in Europe. Both have a great time and both are very happy to be home when the trip is over.

QED

Figures lie & liars figure. I can only rely on productivity numbers based on GDP per capita per labor hour provided by some agency or another. Who knows what is real or true?

I agree that there is no European persona. But, a generalized answer to a broad question using as few words as possible requires stretching some words to cover a lot of surface area - It's bad manners to bore people to death, according to my mom.

There is no monolithic socialist bogey man either - the Red Scare is over. I just don't see any worthwhile reason to argue politics with an engineer whose mind is made up.

You are spot on about education and military funding. The big EU powers gave up on warfare as the sport of kings after WWII which allows them to redirect these resources to socially beneficial programs. The USA military budget is larger than the rest of the World's combined. We could probably spend these dollars more usefully.

Your comment about "much to see here," is the real answer to this question. Sense of history is the major difference between Europeans and Americans. Americans think the World began in 1776, Europeans use roads built by the Romans. We deny history, you enjoy it.

Generally speaking, of course.

It is actually easy to see the difference in productivity on a 1:1 basis, that is what per capita basically means. Take the most productive european countries, UK and Germany and compare the per capita Gross National Product. I suspect you would find only some scandinavian countries and a few small tax shelter/resort countries with higher productions, and that would be due to income skimmed from legalized banking corruption and protectionism against foriegn governments criminal prosecution interests.

I work in the United States for a global French company. I have worked with many of our associates from France, Germany and various oher countries. As a US employee, we start with 2 weeks vacation and are expected to work a minimum of either 45 or 48 hours per week. 50-60 hours is more common. Our French employees start with 6 weeks vacation. Our plant had a 24 year old French Engineer working here for 2 years that took her 6 weeks plus holidays each year. I believe it is the same for the German employees. I knew one German designer who had 10 weeks of vacation annually. The standard work week in Germany is 35 hours. You are forbidden from staying in the manufacturing facility more than 10 hours/day.

Here in the UK and I think the rest of the EU the minimum holiday allowance is i think 25 or 28 days per year. But some of this can include the 8 bank holidays as well.

I am tired of work, I have worked for most of my life. I find that the longer I take for vacation, the less I want to come back to work. Don't get me wrong, I love my work, but I just want to retire at 65 years of age and not have to stand at the entrance to a Walmart greeting people to survive. If there is something wrong with this, then I will get therapy for it.

Why must everything "measure up"?

Hey, Sunny side of the street,

Don't stop to work after your 65 years. Remember, and I speak of experience, your muscles need some action every day. The small hits on your body during the last 45 years become large bruises and start to be noticed, in one word, "hurting". Like many EU or other people, eat slowly and appreciate every intake. You will realize that food has taste and smell differently after 65. The most important, stay on the sony side of the street and enjoy life but still work at your speed. Wish you the best 65 and after, Gil.

if the AMERICANS took more vacation than who would be around to set the standards for the world, and to protect the free world. it wouldnt be the frogs. LEED FOLLOW OR GET OUT OF OUR WAY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN !!!