66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

It has been shown that you need around 14 days of interrupted rest to recover from stress etc.

The European laws are not some random thing we made up because we are lazy. It is to ensure workers are well rested and ready for a new working year. Hence in long term it will also benefit employers.

Some personal anecdata: I notice an immediate difference when I come back after a long vacation. The first 2-3 months I work at top efficiency, get probably done twice as much as I would do any other month.

How long is that long term because there aren't that many great European companies.

In Germany it is actually mandated by law that you take two consecutive weeks of vacation in a year!

> The European laws are not some random thing we made up because we are lazy.

In the case of the UK, much of the working hours, weekends, time off for bank holidays etc were hard-won agreements and rights from the Industrial Revolution era to the 20th century. The UK led the charge with many of these things too

I wish more people understood this. We had basically slave labour, workhouses, horrific factories etc

I've lived in Germany the last few years, I never heard of this, not saying it's not true but it's defo not enforced

I count 10 European companies on this list, and 20 US.

Maybe is not as bad as you think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...

I think you have this backwards, it was explained to me that the employer cannot refuse a consecutive vacation of up to 2 weeks, not that the employee has an obligation to take it as such.

No, the employee is also required to do that by law.

> It has been shown that you need around 14 days of interrupted rest to recover from stress etc.

Do you have sources on that?

My anecdotal experience is that I need at least 3 weeks.

It totally depends on the company. But if pull something like burnout, you should be careful to cover your story why you were not able to relax properly.

Weird remark, but anyway; long term doesn't have to be 'great'. It can just be very long running companies. My company is 30 years old. I would say long term means something in that regard and there tons of mum and pop type places that are quite old. My old-aunts company was created in 1945 and still does very well today. Maybe we have less 'trillion$ or quit' mentality? I am happy if all my colleagues get a million euros a year for the rest of their life in my company; we don't need to be the biggest or greatest, we just need to be provide stuff people value and make money so we all can live.

Got some further info? I can only find reports that this is common misinterpretation.

https://www.rechtsindex.de/arbeitsrecht/490-jahresurlaub-mus...

Never heard that before.

I know this to be true in Switzerland, and only in banking. Where it has to do with detecting fraud in your absence.

There are companies in Europe that are older than the US. I do sincerely think that “long term” is a viable time frame when talking about European companies. When companies grow too large the often fold. So size is not a good measure of long term sustainability.

The only case i encountered a rule like this was at a bank that is a customer of my employer. full-time employees must take 2 weeks of consecutive vacation and they are not permitted to access the systems in that time(for this period logins are disabled). But thats an company policy, that was introduced after an scandal.

Sort of the same in France, or at least the employer is largely pushed to do so. If you don't take 12 consecutive days of vacations between May and October (among other conditions), you get 2 extra days of vacations, for free. It's called 'jours de fractionnement'

Agreed. The first week you're winding down, the last week you're winding up. So with three weeks you get one week of quality restorative vacation.

>The European laws are not some random thing we made up because we are lazy. It is to ensure workers are well rested and ready for a new working year.

If that was true Europe would have the highest productivity of the world, but it doesn't.

I only count 6. Switzerland and the UK are not part of the EU. (The article is about the EU, not Europe)

Productivity, the thing that is so reliably easy to measure.

> If that was true Europe would have the highest productivity of the world, but it doesn't.

Maybe productivity should not be the metric we should strive for?

I lived/worked in the US and Europe and my quality of life and overall happiness was way higher in Europe even if my salary was higher in the US.

> If that was true Europe would have the highest productivity of the world, but it doesn't.

Depends on how you measure productivity. Per hours worked, the top 10 most productive countries is almost only European. Per capita the results are different.

That's a fair point.

But as a worker, do I care where companies have their headquarters? All major tech companies have offices in Europe anyway

> The article is about the EU, not Europe

The thread you're commenting in is about whether workers can still do good things even if they get breaks, not whether they're currently a member state.

A cursory googling says that Swiss workers get 4 weeks and UK workers get 5.6.