when Yemen is the top of the pack, one starts to wonder... maybe what we're presenting isn't a great measurement of human happiness?
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025
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I think this is a good statistic but I'd also recommend looking up the average amount of hours worked per country - I think that paints a better picture of how much time you'll spend working.
I moved to Germany two years ago and the work has been fantastically human-centric, major life over work expectations, and I have no doubt that doesn't apply to everyone in the country but it's been very nice.
USA, leader of the ~~free~~ indentured servitude world!
Good grief, this map really puts it in perspective.
Curious American farmer here. Who provides the payment for the mandated paid leave? The state or the employer? How does this work for people who are self employed?
Spaniard here. The employer, if you are self employed this doesn't apply.
In Germany also the employer. If you are self employed, my understanding is that you don't have a salary as such, so it doesn't apply. But if you own your own company, where you work (as the CEO or whatever) and have a salary, that company pays you, even if you own it.
Another important point that these overviews don't convey: if you are on vacation (be it abroad or at home) and you get sick, you get your paid leave time back and you can take it another time. There's some asterisks attached to this, but generally that's how it works. There's a big emphasis on the text that your vacation days are yours. To regenerate, just relax or whatever you wanna do. So being sick "doesn't count", basically.
In Japan, employers who have permanent employees need to offer the paid leave. There are various schemes for other special types of leave and there is government assistance. There might be something from smaller companies, but I'm not sure. In Japan, the 10 days is only for 正社員 seishain full-time permanent employees. I think companies can also decide the dates for half of that for you, which is dumb.
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I think in most countries there are different nuances when it comes to annual leave, which makes the numbers incomparable. For example, there are differences in whether weekends are counted as part of annual leave, even if the person doesn't normally work weekends. Where I live, Saturday is usually counted as part of your leave unless a union agreement says otherwise.
I guess they accounted for that. There are about 50 Saturdays in a year, if your kind of system was not accounted for, then there would be a clear outlier because of this.
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France's famous 35-hour-week law means that you legally have to get holidays in lieu of weekly hours worked over that number. In my job I worked (theoretically) 37.5 hours, which earned me 47 paid days off. Not including public holidays.
I think those 47 come from more than the 35h RTT, which generally add about 10 days to the 25 minimum. You probably have some additional branch agreements and company benefits.
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Yemen? Wasn't expecting that.
Well this map also includes Sudan, I doubt it is possible/useful to make a statistic about a country that is at civil war.
US doesn't have paid public holidays?
Not legally mandated paid holidays. Your employer is not required to give you PTO, sick leave, or paid holidays.
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My husband applied for a high level management position at a nonprofit and they only sent him the benefits info after his 3 interviews and after he settled on pay. Turns out they only offered 6 days of holidays a year: Christmas Eve and Black Friday didn’t make the list. They offered him 1K more money, twice, but wouldn’t budge on the holiday pay. Fucking incredible if you ask me.
Nationwide mandated paid holidays + paid leaves, meaning no one get left behind.
Austria has the most in Europe in theory, but if they fall on a weekend then they dont matter. We dont do the thing that other countries do with "free day afterwards" in these cases.
Same in France
The Netherlands:
- minimum of 20 days of paid leave
- public holidays are up to the employers to decide, but in practice most public holidays are additional paid leave in most cases
- public holidays during the weekend are not moved to weekdays like they are in some other countries
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PTO in the US is at least dependent on which state you’re in. NJ has PTO mandates for full time employees. It’s pathetically low, but still better than most states.
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If you work at sea with a favourable contract, you can be off for 182 days a year.
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GOP: "Filthy evil socialism by country. USA best #1, 0 Socialism, all hail glorious leader!"
Hell yeah, best of Latin America
Second paragraph is wrong - UK law mandates 20 paid days off, plus there are 8 paid public holiday days
Technically not true, companies don't have to give you bank holidays off as long as you get the right number of days in total (e.g. shops that are open on bank holidays), it's just that most places just give you the bank holidays (so the image is technically correct but a bit misleading)
Cannot understand American employer's reluctance to give out PTO. Someone check my logic?
Regardless of PTO granted, the employer is going to be paying $X for 40-hours a week, 52 weeks a year. They're out nothing!
The obvious counter is that they're out that employees productivity. Now think about the places you've worked. Unless it's a fairly high-end, specialized job, the work is getting done regardless. When someone on your team takes PTO, everyone else picks up the slack.
For a large company there is an argument to be made that they have to hire more people to fill in the rotating PTO gaps through the year. A new employee is a significant cost. Recruiting, advertising, HR and IT onboarding, training, and one no one thinks or knows about, the upfront costs of unemployment insurance.
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So a map that shows who is required to give the most time off. One can still give more than is required.
In Australia, it's rare to get more than 4 weeks. Government jobs will often give 6 weeks, but the minimum is 4 weeks, and most companies don't deviate from that.
The relative size of continents in this image can get hilarious at times. The west is truly brainrot.
Japan has 16 public holidays, at least according to this: https://publicholidays.jp/2025-dates/
What about paid public holidays?
0 of them are specifically codified in employment law as paid time off or a day to be taken off, however are considered by default as non-work days in law so working that day would, in most cases be entitled to overtime pay increase or alternatively a replacement day off. They are also culturally accepted as days off, and there are other holidays like Obon festival next week where taking time off is very common.
Technically speaking the minimum is zero paid leave for new employees, but after a continuous 6 months of 5 days or 30h/week work or more with good attendance, an employee is entitled by law to 10 days of paid leave (likely the figure cited) which scales gradually each year to 20 at 6.5 years tenure. Part time employees receive a partial entitlement which is as little as 1 day off if 48-72 days is worked in a year (1 day/week).
So it's complicated, unless the source for the map used a standard method for all countries to compare equally (e.g. a full time employee's minimum legal entitlement after 12 months at a company).
Some kind of a standard method. Similarly in the states, there is 0 PTO required by law, though it's common for places to offer some amount and include federal holidays.
According to my swiss friend they actually have 4 weeks of paid time off, so I'm confused.