Hey, America: Take a vacation!
By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
These are the dog days of summer, and in this hot, sweltering weather most Americans are busy working. (I know, I know, not you folks in the Hamptons.)
Meanwhile, most Europeans are busy vacationing. Thus it has ever been - only it's getting worse.
Nowadays the average European gets about three times as many days of paid vacation as his counterpart in America. Italy has the most vacation days, with the average worker there getting 42 paid days off, according to the World Tourism Organization.
Next was France with 37 days, Germany with 35, Brazil at 34, the United Kingdom at 28, Canada with 26 and Korea and Japan both with 25. The United States was near the bottom of the list with the average worker getting 13 days off.
But even with those 13 days off, only 57 percent of Americans take them all.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
The conventional answer is that this attitude toward work makes the American economy the envy of the world. America has a hectic, turbo-charged system that builds, destroys and rebuilds, all at warp speed. It's what created the information revolution, Silicon Valley, hedge funds, biotechnology, nanotechnology and so on. And there's no time in it for lolling on the beach!
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/04/hey-america-take-a-vacation/
did you take your vacation this year like those lazy europeans?
By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
These are the dog days of summer, and in this hot, sweltering weather most Americans are busy working. (I know, I know, not you folks in the Hamptons.)
Meanwhile, most Europeans are busy vacationing. Thus it has ever been - only it's getting worse.
Nowadays the average European gets about three times as many days of paid vacation as his counterpart in America. Italy has the most vacation days, with the average worker there getting 42 paid days off, according to the World Tourism Organization.
Next was France with 37 days, Germany with 35, Brazil at 34, the United Kingdom at 28, Canada with 26 and Korea and Japan both with 25. The United States was near the bottom of the list with the average worker getting 13 days off.
But even with those 13 days off, only 57 percent of Americans take them all.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
The conventional answer is that this attitude toward work makes the American economy the envy of the world. America has a hectic, turbo-charged system that builds, destroys and rebuilds, all at warp speed. It's what created the information revolution, Silicon Valley, hedge funds, biotechnology, nanotechnology and so on. And there's no time in it for lolling on the beach!
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/04/hey-america-take-a-vacation/
did you take your vacation this year like those lazy europeans?
