Vacation days around the world

Even though we're past the summer holiday season (in the northern hemisphere, at least) it's interesting to see how different countries compare. Like many Americans, I grew up believing in work, work, work and had taken three days of vacation in the previous three years before meeting Joelle over here. Yes, I've gone native but maybe after going through the normal job churn that is now part of working in this era, I look at the subject much differently than when I was getting started. (I do still work seven days a week when I am not on vacation so my inner American hasn't all left me.)

Last week I spent a few days in Copenhagen for business and was quite interested in their work-life balance attitudes. Many arrived at the office earlier than I wake up in the morning but they also were heading out by 3PM or 4PM. When I asked one person who was visiting his corporate headquarters from the UK, he commented how the Danes were very keen to strike a comfortable work-home balance. As a Brit he thought it was favoring the home side more than work. That said, it was also tough to argue against the fact that it was a highly successful company with operations around the world.

As Americans we often scoff at the long holidays in Europe and some even say workers over this way are lazy. (I plead guilty to making the same argument years ago.) Sounds like jealousy to me because despite the work-life balance and despite the long vacations, the work gets done and the companies prosper. People are more productive when they can relax and come back reinvigorated. The countries with more vacation days are not doing much worse than the US during this recession and many cases, doing better. Could more vacation really be so bad?