When you’re in a full time job you might sometimes feel like setting up camp in the office for the night because it can feel like you live there. And when you feel like doing that on minimum wage, what is your job really offering you in return? I’m really lucky to be in a position where I can choose my working hours and my working environment. But this is the United Kingdom and our ‘work’ and all things surrounding it differ so much to many other countries around the world.
Sweden, for example, offer 36 days paid holiday in the year, and are currently making headlines by trialling a 6 hour working day – which would work so much better for a lot of us. However, their maternity leave is only 12 weeks AND is unpaid, whereas ours can be up to 52 weeks. Pros and cons, people. Pros and cons.
Employment laws, perks and downfalls are different around the world and GoToMeeting have created this infographic to see just how only seven countries can differ.
South African workers clock up the most hours worked in a week, whereas Germany do the least. The UK seem to be sitting quite pretty at 36.5hrs on average. It’s not quite up there with the South Africans, but it doesn’t mean we work any less harder.
We moan about our minimum wage versus the cost of living, but two out of the seven countries have no set hourly minimum wage!
This is just a snapshot of what you can expect from work around the globe. There are obviously lots of other factors that would need to be considered – such as the cost of living. Overall, I think the UK have it pretty good. We seem to be quite the average between most of these countries but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t still improvements that could be made.
What do you think would make better for employment in the UK? Is there something you’d change?
*This is a collaborative post.