Holiday leave around the world

Seeing as a core feature of HR Partner is the tracking of your employee leave, and that we now have users spread across all corners of the globe, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the legislated holiday requirements that every country has.

Who has the best leave conditions for their workers, and who has the worst? I am sure the results will surprise you, as it did me.

Statutory Leave

Almost all countries have a statutory minimum annual leave requirement for their tax paying, income earning citizens. As well as the minimum time off, there is also paid public holidays.

We added the two together to come up with the total days per year that each country offered their employed subjects. We also show the breakdown between vacation days and public holidays in brackets after the total e.g. total days (vacation days/public holidays).

The winners are:

  1. Iran 52 (26/26)
  2. Cambodia 45 (18/27)
  3. Austria 38 (25/13), Malta 38 (24/14), Mauritius 38 (22/16)

The countries with the lowest leave are:

  1. Bhutan 9 (No public holidays)
  2. Japan 10 (No public holidays)
  3. Indonesia 12, Guyana 12 (No public holidays)

In addition, there are a host of countries that do not appear to have a minimum annual leave entitlement, including

  • Kiribati
  • Marshall Islands
  • Micronesia
  • Nauru
  • Palau
  • Tonga

And most surprising to me, the United States does not seem to stipulate a statutory minimum leave entitlement for workers, but in fact leave it up to individual employers to outline their entitlements to their own employees.

My wife was offered a job contracting to a US based company a few years ago, and they offered her a ‘generous’ 10 days of annual leave per year. The minimum for any position here in Australia is 20 days, plus around another 10 days public holidays per year.

Of course, the above numbers may not be 100% accurate, as I know that there are other complexities that come into play for leave allocations, including job/industry type, qualifications, and length of service – but I present that above figures as an interesting finding to think about.

The full list of all countries and their entitlements are on Wikipedia: List of minimum annual leave by country

Managing Leave

Did you know that HR Partner can help you track how much leave your employees are taking?

As well as an overall view of your entire company, including trend graphs of days taken off, our web application can also show you calendar views, and a special leave ‘heat map’ that lets you see which days of the week an particular employee takes most time off. Useful for those ‘long weekenders’ who like taking a Friday or Monday of on a routine basis.

employee leave

HR Partner also allows you staff to submit application for leave via their own employee portal. These applications can be approved by managers or the HR team automatically and quickly.

Holiday Leave Around The World

Category: Company CultureEmployee Management