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To add to that pile, we have here an infographic by Modis which is trying to make a case for a tech-free vacation, the kind that can really help you recharge properly. Apart from that, it also carries a few tips you should follow should you take heed and decide to take a break from it all, for instance, letting people know you are going to be unreachable during your vacation period, before you take off.
And best of all, it mentions a few vacation spots (where it is is geographically impossible to stay connected to the Web) which can give you the silence and relaxation your body has been craving for, and so sorely deserve.
To add to that pile, we have here an infographic by Modis which is trying to make a case for a tech-free vacation, the kind that can really help you recharge properly. Apart from that, it also carries a few tips you should follow should you take heed and decide to take a break from it all, for instance, letting people know you are going to be unreachable during your vacation period, before you take off.
And best of all, it mentions a few vacation spots (where it is is geographically impossible to stay connected to the Web) which can give you the silence and relaxation your body has been craving for, and so sorely deserve.
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.
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.
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
Country
Working hrs per Week
Minimum Mandated Annual Leave (days)
Paid Public Holidays
Paid Vacation Days
Parental leave
(1) Switzerland
30 hrs*
20 days
N/A
20 days
14 weeks
(2) Singapore
40 hrs
8-14 days
11 days
7 days
16 weeks
(3) United States
34 hrs*
0 days; 6-20 days (doe)
0 days
0 days
0 days
(4) Finland
32 hrs*
30 days
9 days
25 days
15 weeks
(5) Germany
27 hrs*
24 days
10-14 days (depending on state)
20 days
14 weeks
(6) Japan
33 hrs*
10 days; +1 day off for each yos (max: 20 days)
N/A
10 days
14 weeks
(7) Hong Kong
40 hrs
7-14 days (depending yos)
N/A
7 days
10 weeks
(8) Netherlands
27 hrs*
20 days
10 days
20 days
16 weeks
(9) United Kingdom
32 hrs*
28 days
8 days (9 for Scotland)
28 days
39 weeks
(10) Sweden
31 hrs*
25 days
N/A
25 days
480 days
(11) Norway
27 hrs*
25 days
2 days
21 days
56 or 46 weeks
(12) United Arab Emirates
40 hrs
2 days/month for 1st year; 30 days for > 1 yos
10 days
25 days
45 days
(13) Denmark
27 hrs*
30 days
9 days
25 days
52 weeks
(14) Taiwan
40 hrs
7-30 days (dependent on yos)
25 days
7 days
8 weeks
(15) Canada
33 hrs*
10 days
5-10 days (depending on province)
10 days
50 weeks
(16) Qatar
40 hrs
15-20 days
10 days
15 days
50 days
(17) New Zealand
34 hrs*
20 days
11 days
20 days
14 weeks
(18) Belgium
30 hrs*
20-24 days (dependent on working days a week)
10 days
20 days
15 weeks
(19) Luxembourg
32 hrs*
25 days (extra 6 days of for workers with disabilities)
10 days
25 days
16 weeks
(20) Malaysia
40 hrs
8-16 days (depending on yos)
19 days
7 days
60 days
(21) Austria
31 hrs*
30-36 days (dependent on yos)
13 days
30/35 days
16 weeks
(22) Australia
32 hrs*
20 days (25 days for shiftworkers)
9-11 days
20 days
18 weeks
(23) France
29 hrs*
30 days (extra 22 days for > 35 working hrs/week)
1 day
25 days
16 weeks; 26 weeks for third child.
(24) Saudi Arabia
48 hrs
21-30 days (dependent on yos)
10 days
15 days
10 weeks
(25) Ireland
35 hrs*
20 days
9 days
20 days
26 weeks
(26) South Korea
42 hrs*
15-25 days (dependent on yos)
N/A
15 days
90 days
(27) Israel
36 hrs*
10-28 days (dependent on yos)
N/A
10 days
14 weeks
(28) China
44 hrs
5-15 days (dependent on yos)
11 days
5 days
98 days
(29) Estonia
36 hrs*
28 days (dependent on contract)
N/A
20 days
140 days (extra 2 wks for medical complications)
(30) Iceland
33 hrs*
24 days
12 days
24 days
90 days
*doe – depending on employer; *yos – year of service
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.
