Employee statutory and public holiday entitlements – global comparisons

[Javaman]

http://www.mercer.com/press-releases/1360620

>snip<

The Americas holiday overview
The United States offers employees no statutory minimum holiday allowance but the typical average is 15 days compared to Canada which offers a statutory minimum of 10 days. Contrary to popular European belief, low levels of statutory holiday in the United States and Canada are not comparative to European standards when taking public holidays into account. Employees in the United States and Brazil have an additional 10 and 11 days public holiday respectively, while workers in Canada are entitled to 9 days’ public holiday. In total, employees in Brazil who can take the full entitlement and the full number of public holidays would receive 41 days off, those in the United States typically 25 days and those in Canada 19 days.

Asian holiday overview
Australia, Japan and New Zealand have the most generous statutory holiday regime, offering employees 20 days’ statutory holiday. South Korea (19), Taiwan (15), Hong Kong and Singapore (14), India (12) and China (10) have less generous entitlements. In addition, Japanese and Indian employees receive 16 public holidays a year followed by South Korea (15), Taiwan (13), Hong Kong (12), and New Zealand, Singapore and China all have 11 days. With 8 days, workers in Australia are entitled to the least public holidays in Asia.

In theory, employees in Japan are entitled, in total, to the most generous holiday allowances with 36 days followed by South Korea (34) and New Zealand (31). Employees in Australia, Taiwan and India would potentially get 28 days followed by Hong Kong (26), Singapore (25) and China (21)

In addition to annual leave and public holidays, employers in some states are required by law to give special leave for getting married, or for the death of a spouse or close relative, for example. Even when there is no requirement, many larger employers provide additional leave for special circumstances.

more at link, including a spreadsheet.