Company Annual leave

[stealth08]

I have heard that the majority of companies in Canada only allow a worker to have 2 weeks of annual vacation leave. That is a big reduction compared to UK's 25 days annual leave. Is this true?

 

[Leon]

Yes, it is quite common both in Canada and the US that you only have 2 weeks paid vacation per year. It depends on the province as well as the employer. In AB it goes up to 3 weeks after 5 years of work. Some companies may be more generous to give it to you earlier than that and even going up to 4 weeks after some time. Of course you can always ask for unpaid vacation as well.

It is also uncommon to have paid sick days. If you are sick on a long term basis, you can get unemployment but there is a two week waiting period for that. Therefore, for any illness of less than 2 weeks, you get nothing.

For work accidents, you have workmen's comp so you do get paid 85% while you are off work because of a work accident. If you clear it with your employer, he may even pay you 100% not to go through workmen's comp because it costs him more if it goes through them.

 

[stealth08]

Thanks so much for your reply.

oh man, 2 weeks???!! Thats really put me off moving to Canada. My dream of moving to Toronto maybe over because of this. It seems like work and no play in Canada. What kind of life is that?

 

[Leon]

There are a lot of 3 day weekends in Canada. There's family day in February, then there is easter, then there is Victoria day in May, Canada day on July 1st but if it's on a weekend, they give you next Monday off, labour day in September and thanksgiving in Oct. In Alberta there's also heritage day the first weekend in August. A lot of people plan their vacation around a long weekend so instead of a 3 day weekend, it might be a 4 day weekend and you can go camping, hiking in the mountains, whatever or you take 1 week starting or ending on a long weekend so you really get 10 days off and then you do it again for your other week.

If you really need to take 5 unbroken weeks off per year, you could still do it. You would just have to negociate with your employer to let you take some of it unpaid. When you think about it, 1 week is around 2% of your wages. If you need 3 extra weeks, that's 6% of your wages. If you save 6% of your wages, you can afford the 3 extra weeks. If your wages in Canada are enough to give you a 6% better living standard financially, you come out even.