You have two sides, with U.S. on one side where workers just work, with little thought for quality of life, and the other side is Europe, where they get paid a bit less, but they have 4 weeks vacation and much less demanding work load.

I dunno about you, but I'd gladly sacrifice $10K(which is pretty much the whole difference between the two) to get all the perks that europeans get

I'm not quite sure why more people don't do this. Bank a bunch of money at a nice professional job, then quit and be funemployed for 6-12 months while they do lots of cool, life-affirming things. A bunch of my friends have done it - either backpacking around the U.S, or buying a Eurail pass and traveling around Europe, or vacationing in Thailand, or helping orphans in Uganda, or joining the Peace Corps - and have said it's one of the best things they ever did. It doesn't even take much money - most of these are liberal arts majors, not computer programmers, and make much closer to $50K/year than $100K/year.

Yes.

There are all sorts of creative ways to get around HR.

Hate the game, not those who must survive within it.

It's currently pretty hard to get a job again on the other side of the vacation. Plus for most people in the USA wages are so low it's hard to even save $10K. 48% of the population are living on or below the poverty line.

According to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate was 15.1% in 2010.

Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2010/...

Has it somehow managed to more than triple in the last year?

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/12/census-says-...

Plus, when your audience is the Hacker News readership it would seem to make little sense to draw conclusions based on the bottom 48% of the population.

Or, perhaps, you'd like to make a supposition that smart people can never be poor?

I think that if you want job security, you're much better off at developing the skills to interview well and the resume to make people sit up and take note of you. You can take that from job to job with you, and know that if you ever get laid off or fired, you can just get another job.

- Germany: 1 month in first 2 years, 2 months for years 5 to 8, ..., 7 months from year 20 on.

- Switzerland: 1 month first year, 2 months for years 2 - 9, 3 months from year 10.

And (at least in Switzerland) a dismissal notice is void if you're on vacation and were not able to receive the registered letter.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/27/jobs/in-high-technology-th...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_emplo...

The US has 0 (zero!) mandated days off. Even China gives people 5-15 days minimum.

Holidays and sick days are cumulative too, and you're entitled to be paid for untaken ones when you leave your job, so log as you've worked there a minimum of 1 year

A typical American gets 2 weeks of stat holidays on top of their 2 weeks of personal holidays, so that's almost the same as the European getting 4 weeks.

(Again, this varies. In Germany it is usually around 28-30, in Spain around 22)

Currently I get 25 days per year not including 6 days stat, for 31 days total or just over 6 weeks total. This is considered average for London and the UK, I would consider 5 weeks to be the absolute low end in the UK. At the upper end in London the news about the Tube Drivers strike disclosed that they have 40+ days holiday, which is just over 8 weeks.

When I lived in Sweden the numbers were higher, with it being compulsory to take a fortnight in a contiguous block in the summer. The UK is the worst of the lot, and we have it OK.

Just my experience, but it varies so greatly from what you're quoting that I felt obliged to respond.

I can't wait for the day all trains are auto pilot.

I think you miss the point, this move from VW is actually acknowledging that taking time off is a step toward more productivity. I also think that having time for family, culture and further education on non related topics is the best way to make you a round person and thus someone who will be highly efficient in its job life. If that's how you would define Europe, it hasn't worked that bad... I mean, there have been centuries some people are saying the demise of Europe, but it's still one of the richest big area in the world.

Europe has gone through so much more worse crisis than the debt crisis, it will take its game together and solve it.

I knew a guy who emigrated to the USA and was working for CITI and was paying a bigger % of his pay just for his health cover.

It is 13.8% for employers!