Paid vacation at Canadian jobs

[240glt]

My S.O. is a director with the Alberta Government and gets 7 weeks holidays, plus a day a month for management, plus five personal days. He's currently got almost three months of banked time. It's crazy.

I work for an American company and they're definitely not as liberal with the time off as Canadian ones. Different culture most definitely. I took a week cut in vacation time when I moved from my former Canadian real estate development co. to my current one. It's still a good company but they don't offer as much time off, and it's not negotiable.

I'd take an extra week in lieu of a raise in a heartbeat but that cannot be done unfortunately.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Funny comparison - I was going to say just from my second-hand experience as well that the engineering world seems pretty bad for vacation time & general worker satisfaction.

Big architecture firms are also notorious for working their employees to the bone; while smaller ones like mine tend to rely on contract workers and are just a bit more precarious (I'm lucky enough to at least be a salaried, full-time worker now). A lot of creative industries are similar as well.

Aside from public sector, the banks and tech industry seem to be the most generous with benefits & time off, and generally pay the most attention to worker satisfaction & retention.

that seems specific to that person/company, although consulting involves "overtime." benefits/work situation can be quite erratic in the u.s., and well, canada to a lesser extent. it's probably better overall than is presumed for white collar with some experience.

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The situation sounds quite a bit better than I thought, given my situation. Time to talk Toronto up, and Stockholm down.

welcome to the new world. *queue The Hunt for Red October end-credit-music*

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

This was actually the law in ontario for a few months before Doug repealed it - you were required to get 3 weeks after being with a company for 5 years, and 4 weeks after being with a company for 10.

The rule about 3 weeks after 5 years was not changed; it was one of Wynne's labour reforms that Ford kept. As for 4 weeks after 10 years, I've never heard of that; I don't think it was ever in Wynne's law at all.

[begratto]

I have 7 weeks of vacations ; 6 is the standard with my number of years of experience in the company I work for, plus I "buy" a bonus one with "Benefits $'s" that we can use as we wish (better insurance protection, medical care, etc). I also get plus all sorts of casual, untracked don't-come-in agreements around Christmas, Friday afternooons in summer, and the like.

This is in a big corporation, in Montreal, for which I have worked for 25 years (including 5 years during which I worked part-time as I was a University student).

I applied for other jobs elsewhere, and they all offered me 5 weeks of vacations in my first year ; my impression was that the number of weeks of vacations is something that could easily be negociated.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The private sector in my experience is much more likely to offer "freebie" days off to employees between Christmas and New Year's. Generally the government does not as the optics would not be good with the general public.

These are the sort of things that unionization often prevents.

A relative of mine is a manager in the provincial public sector. She used to do this thing where on Christmas Eve, if it happened to fall on a weekday, she would let everyone go home after lunch. But a couple years back one of her staff actually filed a grievance, arguing that it was not fair to employees who booked a vacation day for December 24th, because they had to use a full day of their vacation whereas the people who were sent home ended up getting a half day for free, so she was forced to stop the practice, ruining it for everyone.

To me this is one of the arguments against unionization; by establishing strict rules it takes away a lot of the "little perks" that private sector companies can provide.

[MonctonRad]

I am a fee for service physician, but working in a large group in a hospital based practice. The time off I get is negotiated between the group partners, and therefore the government and the hospital has no real input into our working arrangement (as long as an appropriate level of service for the hospital is maintained).

I take 10 weeks a year off, which is quite generous but it is not as good as it sounds when other factors are taken into consideration.

two of those weeks are considered study leave. All physicians in Canada are supposed to accumulate 400 hours of continuing medical education during a five year cycle, which works out to roughly two 40 hour weeks per year. You are supposed to use these two weeks for medical conferences and as such, this isn't really vacation time (it doesn't matter what world famous resort your conference is at, it sucks if you have to spend eight hours a day in a windowless conference hall).

This leaves me with eight weeks off per year, but some of this time is considered time off in compensation for providing on call services. I work one weekend in nine on call, which works out to roughly 14-16 days of weekend call per year, or three standard five day work weeks.

This takes me down to the equivalent of five weeks off per year, which is pretty similar to most other people on here who have replied.

[flar]

I think two or three weeks to start is normal, unless you are contract or casual. Then it's zero.

It really sucks, I used to put a huge amount of effort into maximizing my vacation days when I worked for the government. I used to let my casuals and students take days off and make up the time later, but then if they stayed late I would tell them to go home, so there is room for informal arrangements in some offices (one of my directors really frowned on that, but whatever). Now I'm self employed so time off is not a problem.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Worth mentioning that we also have fewer stat holidays than most of the rest of the world as well.

Sad but true, generally 10 days in each province. Not including the days governments and schools get off but the rest of us have to work.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by flar

I think two or three weeks to start is normal, unless you are contract or casual. Then it's zero.

It really sucks, I used to put a huge amount of effort into maximizing my vacation days when I worked for the government. I used to let my casuals and students take days off and make up the time later, but then if they stayed late I would tell them to go home, so there is room for informal arrangements in some offices (one of my directors really frowned on that, but whatever). Now I'm self employed so time off is not a problem.

Oh yes, working on contract for the government sucks, except for the small proportion who are granted 1.25 vacation days a month. I had some managers who were fine with informal arrangements, but one in particular who seemed to think that it was a privilege to be allowed to work contract and vacations should be reserved for permanent employees. Which was especially rich as he took 4 weeks off over the summer.

Since then I've always tried to treat our summer / co-op students like you describe. My current division is very lenient with that kind of arrangement luckily.

[rousseau]

I have never had a formal vacation in my working life, paid or otherwise.

A long time ago I did short stints in a couple of factories followed by a few years of outdoor carpentry work. I either got laid off or told that things were slow in the winter. No pay either way, but I was free to do whatever I wanted during January and February.

I taught ESL in Taiwan for a number of years. None of the cram schools in the city I worked in had anything resembling set, paid vacation time. Standard practice was to work a year, quit, go travel for a few weeks or months, and then come back and look for a new job, either in the same city or maybe a different one. Chaotic and adventurous when you're young, but it wears on you after a while.

I've now been a freelance translator for the past twenty years, subcontracting work from a group of about fifteen translation agencies on a first-come-first-served basis, i.e. if my schedule allows it by their deadline, I'll do the project offered to me. Same for my wife; we're both in this business together. We love the freedom afforded to us to schedule our days as we please (just gotta get the work done by the scheduled delivery date), but taking time off always means taking a hit to our finances, so we rarely take more than one week off at a time in any given year.

I don't know what it's like to have a boss say "see you in three weeks."

[flar]

I almost forgot, the Federal Government also allows leave with income averaging. Basically you can take two months off without pay, and they reduce your paycheque for the year so you keep getting a smaller paycheque every two weeks even while on leave.

[Fischbob]

I work at a municipality and currently have 3 weeks of vacation (plus a floating holiday), which will ramp up to 4 weeks after 7 consecutive years of service. The ladder goes as high as 7 weeks of vacation after 25 years.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Seven weeks as official paid leave is pretty much unheard of in my experience. Unless you're a schoolteacher of course, but then that's not really "paid leave" as you're not paid during the summer.

Maybe it's different in Quebec, but in Ontario, schoolteachers are definitely paid for the summer, as long as they are permanent/tenured (contract teachers are not). Although some school boards will actually issue all paycheques for July and August to teachers in a huge lump sum payment at the end of June so they can avoid having to keep their payroll departments open in the summers.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Canada’s curse is being next to the USA. I’ve heard iof workers there getting one week.

That is absolutely true in many of the states. I have cousins who work in a few different states and they tell me about how vacation time is frowned upon. They use their limited days to visit family in Canada and their co-workers will often make them feel guilty for using those days. They hear a lot of "oh, you're talking a vacation?!?" from others who are jealous. And then the co-workers will constantly mention the vacation for weeks or even months before it happens.

I work in the federal public service and currently have 4 weeks. Here is what you get with almost all collective agreements within the Government of Canada:

Start at 3 weeks

After 8 years: 4 weeks

After 16 years: 4.4 weeks

After 17 years: 4.6 weeks

After 18 years: 5 weeks

After 27 years: 5.4 weeks

After 28 years: 6 weeks (which is the maximum)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Maybe it's different in Quebec, but in Ontario, schoolteachers are definitely paid for the summer, as long as they are permanent/tenured (contract teachers are not). Although some school boards will actually issue all paycheques for July and August to teachers in a huge lump sum payment at the end of June so they can avoid having to keep their payroll departments open in the summers.

I think it might be the same in Quebec, or at least there is the same variability here.

My wife has several family members who are teachers in Ontario.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The federal government is pretty close to being the gold standard and they top out at around 6 weeks after about 20 years of service I think.

Most groups need 28 years of service to get 6 weeks.

[SpongeG]

skimmed, there are rules regarding it.

I think to get 6 weeks off you need to have hit 16 years or more to get it unless of course your employer agrees to those terms. I think after 6 years you get 3 weeks. And around 10 years you get 4 weeks. Thats what the union agreement was at a place I worked at.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Most groups need 28 years of service to get 6 weeks.

OK thanks.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Maybe it's different in Quebec, but in Ontario, schoolteachers are definitely paid for the summer, as long as they are permanent/tenured (contract teachers are not). Although some school boards will actually issue all paycheques for July and August to teachers in a huge lump sum payment at the end of June so they can avoid having to keep their payroll departments open in the summers.

I'm married to a teacher so I know how it works.

Teachers aren't actually paid for the Summer when they are not working. They are paid by day worked (which includes school days and professional activity days) but their pay is spread over the entire year and paid every two weeks. Basically their annual salary divided by 26 for each payday.

There are around 200 days a year teachers are required to be at work. So if a teacher takes an unpaid day off, he/she loses 1/200 of his/her salary.

[canarob]

I'm in the Ontario provincial public service and we get 5 weeks after 8 years of service, 6 after 16 years of service, and 7 after 24 years.