Mastodawn

MicroWave Aug 27, 2023

66% of Americans want European-style vacation policies, like being OOO for the entire month of August

66% of Americans want European-style vacation policies, like being OOO for the entire month of August - Lemmy.world

In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit. Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.

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bob_wiley Aug 28, 2023

Can someone from Europe explain how this works? Surely everyone isn’t off for the whole month of August. I’ve been hearing this for as long as I can remember. How do people do anything if everything is closed? Need food… sorry, the market is closed. Need to get somewhere… sorry, the trains aren’t running. Need clean water… sorry, we shut down the treatment plant for holiday.

I always hear about his August thing in Europe and it makes 0 sense. Is this some half-truth people blow up in attempts to manipulate others into getting something that doesn’t actually exist?

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Rinox

Italy here. Usually factories and many offices shut down for at least 2 weeks in August. Essential services obviously stay open.

Some other services may or may not decide to close, like a butcher may decide to close for a few weeks in the summer. Same for some bars/restaurants etc. Not all of them, some of them.

Also there’s a huge difference between where you are. If you live in the industrialized north, then what I described it’s more or less true, but if you live in the south, it’s all completely different. August becomes the busiest period for the tourist-centric south, with bars and restaurants working at maximum capacity, beaches and cities all full of tourists and service workers actually increase in this period.

It’s obviously not 100% all society shuts down, but if you are an American company trying to do business with Europe in August, just keep in mind that lots of stuff will be postponed to September.