Does it vary state to state or is it federal? Is there a minimum they have to give? What about mandatory shut down (ie. the office closes over Christmas and you have to take time off) – does that come out of your alloted days, or in addition to them?
If you don't get leave, do you get a higher wage to accommodate that? Is casual-loading a thing?
In my country, if you have a full time position, you get annual leave (vacation) and personal leave (sick, including mental health), all fully paid. It varies on industry but generally its about 6 weeks or so in total.
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Pretty much all of varies company to company, job to job. There aren’t a lot of legal minimums.
There are no federal minimums or maximums.
Mandatory shut down days are limited to specific industries, so there’s really no way to answer that. In most cases its treated as paid time off in industries like manufacturing.
>If you don’t get leave, do you get a higher wage to accommodate that?
Depends, but not really. Its usually something you negotiate with your employer. I personally will almost always prefer time off in lieu of a pay raise.
>Is casual-loading a thing?
I’ve never heard this term.
>In my country…about 6 weeks or so in total.
I get significantly more than this.
There is no norm for leave. Private employers can give you anywhere from 0-30 days of leave. However, most businesses are closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Literally the only two holidays where 99 percent of shops and offices are closed.
Federal government jobs have fairly generous paid holidays and leave. Employees get 11 federal holidays off plus anywhere from 14-30 days of paid leave, depending on their tenure.
It varies significantly for state, local government and private industry jobs. Somewhere like McDonald’s will give you very few paid days off until you’ve worked there for like 6 months.
I think some states require some sort of paid leave but federally there is nothing. For medical issues (own issue, pregnancy, caring for others) up to 12 weeks unpaid leave is required — but only from qualifying employers and for eligible employees. This is a bit more than half of all US workers.
Personally I have had anything from zero paid time off to six weeks time off plus a bunch of company holidays.
For my job mothers get 3 months minimum but can burn accrued pto after that so its common for moms to Be out for 6+ months with full pay and benefits
For fathers like myself the coty mandates i get two weeks off. Anything after that is entirely up to the whims of a supervisor and is my own time off (so is the two weeks)
I was forced back after two weeks despite having 7 weeks saved up for my kids birth. Basically would come back for a week be off for another back for a few then out for weeks etc due to my vacations because the supervisors were being petty
The most I’ve ever had was in the military where I got unlimited sick days (as long as determined by a military medical professional), 30 days of paid time off and most federal holidays. Of course there were times I worked 24 hours a day for several days and on weekends but that’s just life.
The least I’ve ever had was in retail and fast food where I had no vacation days, no sick days and only Thanksgiving and Christmas as mandatory shut down days.
Most jobs have somewhere between those two. Most people I know are much more towards what I got in retail but obviously it’s going to depend on where you are in the old socioeconomic hierarchy. As this sub tends to be more well off than the average American you’ll get answers which are similarly biased.
From a quick google search the average time people have is 11 days of paid time off and 8 sick days. Close to 1/3 of Americans have no paid time off.
I’ve worked a lot of different jobs and no policy has ever been the same. My last job didn’t even have any official policies to that effect cuz it was such a small company. With my current job, all time off is accumulated; the more you work, the more time off you get.
My job has no paid time off but I can take as much unpaid time off I want. I take off about 30 days a year.
There is no one standard. It varies by employer.
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California semi recently started mandatory vacation a sick leave. I get 5 days PTO 9 days sick leave per year. It’s so low lol
In the last 30 years I think I have started with 10 days of vacation and 5 days of sick time at every job but one where I negotiated for 15 days vacation. Usually after 5 years I would get another 5 days of vacation. Some places it was a combined 15 days of PRO (paid time off). My last two jobs also provided 3 days of personal days off.
In my state there is a family leave program where you get 80% of your salary up to a certain amount for 12 weeks. This can be used for pregnancy and maternity leave, for paternity leave or for mental health if certain requirements are met. There is also a minimum requirement for sick days for salaried employees working full time in my state, like 5 days for the year. Other than that, the companies can offer whatever they want, and most full time salaried employment offers vacation time. IMHO I’d say 10 vacation days is average, 15 is pretty good, and 20 is if you’ve been there a very long time. But this is just New Jersey, not every state requires sick time and offers state leave. Companies can also offer above and beyond what is required by law.
It’s going to depend on industry, experience, etc… if your a full time white collar position, you have a decent sick and annual leave plan most likely. After you’ve worked in your position for at least 3 years, your accumulation starts to go up.
There is no norm.
We don’t generally refer to “i have the sniffles” or other types of 1-2 day ailments as “leave”. “Leave” usually means something longer, usually 4-7+ days. Like paternal leave for having a child, or medical leave for surgery/recovery. etc…
If someone says “i have 6 sick days”, they mean that those are for the “i have the sniffles” type thing. Others would be covered by short term or long term options for leave.
I have a co-worker who has been on leave for over 2 years at this point. I’m pretty certain she has exhausted any type of paid leave she’s had. It goes from 100% for the first few months, down to like 85%, and dwindles the further out you go. Her position is still protected though, so when she’s ready to return, she can.
This is paid by the company, not by any type of government.
>What about mandatory shut down (ie. the office closes over Christmas and you have to take time off
There is no mandatory shutdown. Businesses are not forced by law to close on Christmas.
If they choose to close, they can decide on what to pay hourly employees. Salaries employees are paid a salary regardless of the precise hours or days they work.
I am at 33-some days of paid time off, which will increasefurther next year, a handful of federal holidays, no weekends, and I’ve also used short-term disability twice in my 9 years at my current employer. There is a variety of other leaves like parental, long term disability, mourning, and a few others.
It depends on your company and your position. I’ve had jobs where I didn’t get paid time off or vacation days. I’ve had other jobs where it took 3 years with the company before I got PTO.
I currently have about 3 weeks’ worth of PTO. At my current job, I accumulate it based off hours worked and how long I’ve been with the company.
It varies a lot. I’ve had places with 5 weeks PTO or unlimited PTO and I have had places with none. (you could take time off but you didn’t get paid for it). The current place I am at gives me about 3 weeks, and if you don’t use it it carries over.
There is no norm at all. It varies based on your contract.
It varies by industry and company and all that. My husband and I spent 25+ years in newspapers and very often had to work Christmases, Easters, New Years etc. The days were often much shorter than normal workdays, and we got holiday pay for it, but relatives never really understood when we had to leave celebrations early. Even my RN mother and city lineman father worked fewer holidays than we did, in my memory. But the news doesn’t just stop for holidays.
Now my husband works at a college and I freelance, and we get so much time off. It’s hard to get used to but it’s great.
Most states don’t have minimums for anything you mentioned, but some do and they typically only apply the low-skill hourly employees since you normally get better benefits when you get to higher-paying roles.
If you are in a state with no minimum paid leave requirements and are working the drive-thru at a fast food chain, you typically don’t get benefits unless you work full-time, or they may be pro-rated based on the number of hours you work, and any time off you take will be unpaid and has to be cleared by management.
For white collar jobs, small businesses will have worse benefits and big corporations can typically offer better vacation and sick leave. Some do it based on seniority where I’ve seen new employees get 13 days a year + sick time + some paid holidays and they scale up to accrue up to 26 days once they’ve been with the company for several years. I’ve also seen everyone at the company get unlimited PTO with the understanding that you will not take too much and let your job performance suffer.
>Does it vary state to state or is it federal? Is there a minimum they have to give?
There’s no federal minimum, and most states also have no minimum.
>What about mandatory shut down (ie. the office closes over Christmas and you have to take time off) – does that come out of your alloted days, or in addition to them?
It varies, I’ve seen both.
>If you don’t get leave, do you get a higher wage to accommodate that?
Not necessarily, and often just the opposite. Jobs with higher salaries often have better benefits (more leave, cheaper or free health insurance, etc).
As others have pointed out already; it’s very specific to the industry someone works in, the company one works for and potentially even the position they hold within the company.
There is no set standard though, for most white collar corporate positions, the minimum expectation for a brand new entry level employee would be 10-15 days off per year (combination of sick/vacation) plus whatever holidays the company recognizes (many companies do not follow all federal/bank holiday schedules).
You don’t (usually) get any more or less pay depending on the amount of paid time off you have, of course this is all up to the initial negotiations between one’s self and their employer.
I will add one additional anecdote: *typically* speaking the higher one’s position is at a company, the more time off they get. However, once a person reaches a position with a certain amount of responsibility, they typically don’t take their full benefit of days off per year *because* of the amount of responsibility they have. It’s also not uncommon at all for people to still do some work even while on paid time off – thankfully that is becoming more of an exception rather than an expectation for lower level employees. Higher ups (think CEO’s and Vice Presidents) are “on” 24/7/365, regardless of the company/industry. As a kid in the late 90’s/early 00’s my parents (corporate big wigs) always took us on camping vacations to the middle of no where because it was the only physical places where their cellphones didn’t work and thus they didn’t actually have to “be on” work wise.
There are no state or Federal laws about time off…
For corporate jobs, 2 weeks (10 days) vacation is the typical standard, at least starting out. As people gain more tenure with a company they may get more (eg. my company gives 3 week after 3 years, 4th week after 8 years, 5th week after 10). Different companies give differing amounts of paid holidays, sick time, personal days, etc. as well. There are usually about 8-10 paid holidays (New Years, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.)
There’s no federal or state mandates about this. It varies from company to company. And even if you supposedly have vacation time, a lot of companies discourage you from taking it. (This is one of the reasons Americans don’t travel much, especially outside of the United States.)
Europeans have no idea how much freedom they have with mandated paid vacation time, nor how much they take it for granted that everyone has that kind of freedom. We don’t.
There is no federal requirement.
Most professional jobs seem to start with about 2 weeks of vacation. After 25 years, I’ve worked my way up to 6 weeks per year. Some jobs will have separate sick leave, but I think that’s getting rare; if you don’t have sick leave, you have to use your “vacation” time (usually called PTO), but hopefully they give you a few extra days a year for that.
Full-time service or blue collar jobs? I couldn’t tell you.
I’ve worked at a hospital for almost 9 years. I currently get a little over 5 weeks of paid leave each year. However, that includes vacation, holiday, and sick time – it all comes out of our PTO (paid time off) bank.
>Does it vary state to state or is it federal?
Some states (including where I live) have mandatory sick leave policies. For my state, it includes if you’re sick, if you need a mental health day, if your child is sick or needs a mental health day, or if you are in a domestic violence situation and need time away from work in order to get away. The problem is that companies will roll this into their PTO policies, so sometimes it’s not additional time off. I really don’t like this; I think sick and personal time should be separate so that people take time when they need it. When my mom was working before she had me, she once got in trouble for taking sick time, so these laws protect workers, which is the big thing.
>What about mandatory shut down (ie. the office closes over Christmas and you have to take time off) – does that come out of your alloted days, or in addition to them?
Pretty much every place will give time for the holidays that don’t come out of your PTO. This is generally Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, though some industries (healthcare, police) require that you work these days, and then it depends on the company when you get off. The federal/state governments will give more holidays. My company also gives more holidays.
>In my country, if you have a full time position, you get annual leave (vacation) and personal leave (sick, including mental health), all fully paid. It varies on industry but generally its about 6 weeks or so in total.
Most people get around 3-4 weeks not including holidays. I have an “unlimited PTO” policy, which can either be great, or a complete crock depending on the company and role. For my role, unlimited PTO works very well because I’m an accountant, so there are periods where you can’t take off anyway, but if you have a really bad close period and you’re like “I need a day” you can do that. I also like not having to track sick leave; we only need a doctor’s note if we’re out more than three days for the same thing. Some companies make you feel guilty for taking your PTO. Before I took this job, I asked questions about how much PTO people take, and also, they provide more holidays than what I listed above (Christmas Eve, Juneteenth, International Women’s Day, President’s Day) so I was fairly confident that they actually meant “take time off when you need it.”
There is nothing mandated for PTO but several states do require very small amounts of sick pay with 1 hour for every 20/30/40 that you work.
Most retail or food service jobs don’t offer PTO although one local restaurant group that owns like 6 or 7 restaurants starting to offer PTO, 401K contributions, and other benefits unheard of because of the pandemic.
When I worked food service, the only days our stores were closed were Thanksgiving, Christmas, and if the power was out (or due to snow). Those were unpaid.
I work an office job now I get roughly 20 days off plus 7 paid holidays when the company is closed.
Some states, such as California, do have some laws around minimum leave requirements. However, these are often very convoluted and only apply to certain types of jobs. There are no federal mandates either.
So, at the end of the day, it’s up to the company to decide. It’s one of the many things to weigh when job searching.
I have 4 weeks of PTO. Another couple years and I’ll have 5. I’ve never worked anywhere that gave sick or personal time.
It varies widely, but is usually less than in Europe.
I can really only address my experience with salaried positions at large corporations. Retail, hourly, and small businesses are probably worse.
There’s about 10 Federal holidays, which most people get off. My last employer rearranged them so we had only a few on the day, but had the entire Christmas – New Years Day period off.
‘Sick days’ have pretty much evaporated over the last 30 years, and now you’re expected to use PTO (paid time off, aka vacation time) for that.
A new hire will get only a week or two in their first year, with additional weeks being added in (for example) in the second, fifth, and tenth years of employment. This is in addition to the Federal holidays.
So, in practice, most people in these positions get 20-30 days off, not all on days of their choosing.
Most commonly people with white collar salaried jobs will have between 4-6 weeks of paid time off to start off with – this includes vacation time, sick time, and paid holidays. Companies frequently have benchmarks that after you’ve stayed with the company for a certain amount of years that you get additional days of vacation time. After five years you get another 5 days, after 10 years another 5 days, etc.
There are also companies that offer “unlimited” PTO but it can really vary on the company if that’s actually easily accessible.
People who work hourly jobs are more likely to have PTO be “accrued” and those accrual rates can vary significantly, but its pretty unusual for it to end up in practice being higher than what a salaried position offers.