When do the americans have vacation?

I work for an American company and I’ve come across some disturbing differences in the holidays we get and what our colleagues over there get. In Ireland, we get a standard 21 days plus public holidays (there’s 9 of those), so a total of 6 weeks paid holiday per year. Some of my colleagues in the US get as little as 10 + public holidays! (can someone confirm or deny if this is typical/standard?)
So for that reason, I’m not sure they’d have vacation time in the same way we do here in euro-land…

At my last job (for a hospital system) we had six paid holidays, plus up to 30 or 31 days of leave per year which could be used either as sick or vacation time. We were able to “bank” that time up to a reserve of 200–280 hours, depending on how long you were with the organization. So, potentially, one could take six or seven weeks off, but then the next year you’d be back at your 30 days (based on an 8 hour day).

Americans don’t get a country-wide holiday period as some European countries do. Traditionally, families take two weeks in the summer when kids are out of school.

Many Americans no longer even take two weeks. My husband works for a large company. He gets five paid leave days (calleed personal days) plus ten vacation days. Sick leave is separate and cannot be used as vacation the way it is at kevbo’s last job.

At the last big company I worked for, you had to work there ten years before getting three weeks of paid vacations.

Many Americans have a skewed idea of the value of vacation and do not even take what they are entitled to.

There are no standard times. While many people with families (children out of school) go during the summer months, when people go in vacation is totally individualized.

Here are some statistics on this:

“The United States is one of the only modern countries without vacation-time minimums mandated by law.

In many European countries workers get five weeks of vacation. Laws mandate a minimum of two weeks vacation in Canada and Japan.

Employees in European Union countries get four weeks of paid vacation by law, while many employees in the U.S. would need to work at a job more than a year before getting the conventional two weeks vacation, and the law does not mandate that.

For example, the London-based HSBC Group starts its England based employees out with 26 vacation days plus 8 public holidays each year. A U.S. employee in an American subsidiary would have to be on the job for 10 years at HSBC before getting that kind of time off.”

I’m self-employed, so I take no vacations most years.

@PnT “All work and not play . . .” You should change that!

Well, in that case I’m taking a ten-minute vacation right now to Fluther. ;)

Last year was the first vacation I’ve taken in years, two weeks off. And with the way things are going lately, I won’t take one again for a few years…

My former bro-in-law was CEO of a company and it was considered bad form for all, including him, to use their vacation time. Truly odd work ethic, as Marina mentioned ^^.

I have found the vacation time can also depend on the type of work an employee has. For example, I work retail and because of that I can not take vacations from the end of October to the first weeks of January to cover the busy hours at the store.

I usually take vacation mid-August, but most Americans tend to take vacation from late-May to early-September, the time period where children would be out of school.

I’m a US letter carrier and have 208 hours annually and can carry unused leave over.
I prefer to call my time off a holiday as they do in Europe. A holiday sounds fun. Vacation always seems to reference work. A vacation is time away from your job. I’m off this week so I’m going to have fun on holiday.

In France three days off is called une congée__. A long vacation is _les vacances.

@Chuck: Making way for ducklings?