EU Must Be Joking! Irish Workers Getting Less Holidays Than Most Other EU Residents

That’s it – we’re all moving to Italy. 

Think you’re doing well with the nice little run of Bank Holidays on the horizon? You could be doing much better if you lived in Russia or Italy.

Irish people’s paid and public holidays comes in at an average of just 29 days a year.

That’s the finding of research released today by travel experts Hotels.com. When looking at both statutory annual leave and public holiday allowances across the continent, they found that it’s the Brits, Irish, Swiss and Germans who are the worst off in terms of time off. Brits had the most to complain about with only 28 days off per year, but they were closely followed by Irish residents on 28 days, the same as Switzerland and Germany.

Russians and Italians topped the table, benefiting from an incredible 40 and 36 days holiday respectively.   

Irish workers get less holidays per year than most other EU workers

Of the 12 European nations surveyed, the travel experts found the average leave and public holiday entitlement is 33 days across Europe, meaning Irish workers lose out on four days out of the office each year compared to some of their European counterparts. 

It could be worse though - on a global scale, Mexico has the lowest total of paid and public holidays with just 13 days given to workers per year comprising six public holidays and seven days annual leave. And at least we’ve got this weekend to look forward to…