Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Could More Vacation Time Improve Your Productivity? [30 Countries Compared]

Japan, known for its workaholic culture made headlines when its government was reported to be considering passing a law which force its workers to take leave. There are many reasons that contribute to such a drastic decision including the thought that this move could help to revive Japan’s economic growth after years of stagnation.


But is it really that simple? Do more leave days equate to increased productivity?


While there are many articles written on the Internet (including one of our very own) that say YES, fewer work days lead to higher productivity, the data is incomplete or usually uses only one country as a focal point. We thought we’d give the data a second look, and going much bigger with this.


So here’s what We Did


You may have come across reports that mention Switzerland as the most productive country, based on a Global Competitiveness Report. We’ve looked into the methodology and found that they fall back on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) as "an appropriate estimate of the level of productivity and competitiveness of an economy."


Technically, the higher up a country is ranked on this report, the higher the productivity of the country.


So we pulled the top 30 most competitive countries as ranked by the Global Competitiveness Report 2014/2015 and found the four following sets of data for comparison:


  • average working hours per week

  • minimum annual leave mandated by law

  • days of parental leave allocated for each country

  • parental leave mandated by law

Note: The data here is correct as pulled from their sources on Feb, 2015. Our sources are available at the bottom of the table.


Working Hours And Leave By Countries




























































































































































































CountryWorking hrs per Week
Minimum Mandated
Annual
Leave (days)
Paid Public HolidaysPaid Vacation DaysParental leave
(1) Switzerland30 hrs*20 daysN/A20 days14 weeks
(2) Singapore40 hrs8-14 days 11 days7 days16 weeks
(3) United States34 hrs*0 days;
6-20 days
(doe)
0 days0 days0 days
(4) Finland32 hrs*30 days9 days25 days15 weeks
(5) Germany27 hrs*24 days10-14 days
(depending on state)
20 days14 weeks
(6) Japan33 hrs*10 days;
+1 day off for each yos
(max: 20 days)
N/A10 days14 weeks
(7) Hong Kong40 hrs7-14 days (depending yos)N/A7 days10 weeks
(8) Netherlands27 hrs*20 days10 days20 days16 weeks
(9) United Kingdom32 hrs*28 days8 days
(9 for Scotland)
28 days39 weeks
(10) Sweden31 hrs*25 daysN/A25 days480 days
(11) Norway27 hrs*25 days2 days21 days56 or 46 weeks
(12) United Arab Emirates40 hrs2 days/month for 1st year;
30 days for
> 1 yos
10 days25 days45 days
(13) Denmark27 hrs*30 days9 days25 days52 weeks
(14) Taiwan40 hrs7-30 days (dependent on yos)25 days7 days8 weeks
(15) Canada33 hrs*10 days5-10 days
(depending on province)
10 days50 weeks
(16) Qatar40 hrs15-20 days10 days15 days50 days
(17) New Zealand34 hrs*20 days11 days20 days14 weeks
(18) Belgium30 hrs*20-24 days (dependent on working days a week)10 days20 days15 weeks
(19) Luxembourg32 hrs*25 days
(extra 6 days of for workers with disabilities)
10 days25 days16 weeks
(20) Malaysia40 hrs8-16 days (depending on yos)19 days7 days60 days
(21) Austria31 hrs*30-36 days (dependent on yos)13 days30/35 days16 weeks
(22) Australia32 hrs*20 days
(25 days for shiftworkers)
9-11 days20 days18 weeks
(23) France29 hrs*30 days
(extra 22 days for > 35 working hrs/week)
1 day25 days16 weeks;
26 weeks for third child.
(24) Saudi Arabia48 hrs21-30 days (dependent on yos)10 days15 days10 weeks
(25) Ireland35 hrs*20 days9 days20 days26 weeks
(26) South Korea42 hrs*15-25 days (dependent on yos)N/A15 days90 days
(27) Israel36 hrs*10-28 days (dependent on yos)N/A10 days14 weeks
(28) China44 hrs5-15 days (dependent on yos)11 days5 days98 days
(29) Estonia36 hrs*28 days
(dependent on contract)
N/A20 days140 days
(extra 2 wks for medical complications)
(30) Iceland33 hrs*24 days12 days24 days90 days

*doe – depending on employer;
*yos – year of service


Sources:


  1. Top 30 Most Competitive Countries, Global Competitive Report

  2. List of statutory minimum employment leave by country, Wikipedia

  3. *Average annual hrs actually worked per worker, OECD

  4. Workweek and weekend, Wikipedia

  5. Parental leave, Wikipedia

Leaderboard


Now, we understand that the table above is contains a truckload of data and who has the vacation time to go through the data cell by cell, right? In this section we will just give you the summary for each category, in what we will call the leaderboards.


Let’s start with the working hours in a week.


Countries with the most working hours:


  • 48 hrs – Saudi Arabia

  • 44 hrs – China

  • 42 hrs – South Korea

  • 40 hrs – Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates,

  • 36 hrs – Israel, Estonia

Countries with the Least working hours:


  • 27 hrs – Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark

  • 29 hrs – France

  • 30 hrs – Switzerland, Belgium

  • 31 hrs – Sweden, Austria

  • 32 hrs – Luxembourg, Australia

If you are looking for the country that tops the chart in highest number of mandated annual leave, check this out:


Countries With Most Annual Leave (days):


  • 30 days – Finland, France, Denmark, Austria

  • 28 days – United Kingdom, Estonia

  • 24 days – Germany, Iceland

  • 25 days – Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg

  • 21 days – Saudi Arabia

Countries With Least Annual Leave (days):


  • 0 days – United States

  • 5 days – China

  • 7 days – Taiwan, Hong Kong

  • 8 days – Singapore, Malaysia

  • 10 days – Israel, Canada, Japan

If you wonder if vacation days actually have the influence on productivity in the workplace, then these are the leaderboards you want to see.


Countries With The Most Paid Vacation Days:


  • 30 days – Austria

  • 28 days – United Kingdom

  • 25 days – Finland, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Luxembourg, France

  • 24 days – Iceland

  • 21 days – Norway

Countries With The Least Paid Vacation Days:


  • 0 days – United States

  • 5 days – China

  • 7 days – Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia

  • 10 days – Japan, Canada, Israel

  • 15 days – Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea

Parental leave, a controversial topic for many countries including the United States. Here are the countries that give parents a whole lot of time off, and those that didn’t.


Countries With The Longest Parental Leave:


  • 480 days – Sweden

  • 56 weeks – Norway

  • 52 weeks – Denmark

  • 50 weeks – Canada

  • 26 weeks – Ireland

Countries With The Shortest Parental Leave:


  • 45 days – United Arab Emirates

  • 50 days – Qatar

  • 8 weeks – Taiwan

  • 60 days – Malaysia

  • 10 weeks – Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia

Lastly, here are the leaderboards on paid public holidays, also known as holidays that you get to take a break while still on a payroll.


Countries With The Most Paid Public Holidays:


  • 25 days – Taiwan

  • 19 days – Malaysia

  • 13 days – Austria

  • 12 days – Iceland

  • 11 days – Singapore

Countries With The Least Paid Public Holidays:


  • 0 days – United States

  • 1 day – France

  • 2 days – Norway

  • 5 days – Canada

  • 8 days – United Kingdom

Visual Aid


To our readers who adopt the tl;dr approach, here’s an infographic that can help you better visualize the amount of data featured here, designed by our friends in Piktochart.


Editor’s note: This infographic is available at Piktochart and is free to use.


Conclusion


While our methods are far from scientific, we’re not seeing a pattern where more vacation days is contributing to higher productivity or competitiveness of a particular country. Then again, the data is all here and up for your scrutiny and interpretation.


Let us know what you think.










Could More Vacation Time Improve Your Productivity? [30 Countries Compared]

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.