Labor Conditions USA: Overworked, Vacation-Starved America Ranks #1 in Depression, Mental Health Problems - by J.A. Silja Talvi
U.S. workers' lives are beginning to look a lot like they did 100 years ago when 14-hour days were the norm. As John de Graaf, executive director of the Seattle-based advocacy group Take Back Your Time, puts it, Americans are "time-starved and vacation-starved." Americans put in more hours at work than any other nation, surpassing even the workaholic Japanese. We average nine more weeks of labor per year than our working counterparts in Western Europe, who get at least 20 paid days of vacation each year. Finland tops the list of vacation-supporting industrialized nations with 30 paid vacation days per year after the first year of work, plus 14 paid national holidays, according to a July 2007 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. (This is in addition to the possibility that the country might soon grant "love holidays" so that some couples can rekindle passions and have kids.) Canada and Japan are near the bottom of that list, with a legal minimum of 10 vacation days, while the United States has the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized nation that does not have a mandatory minimum of vacation time. In fact, out of the world's 195 independent countries, 137 have some kind of vacation/annual leave legislation in place.
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