Leave Well Enough Alone

The Age

Saturday January 12, 2008

David Wilson

At this time of year a mini-army of experts is given to emphasising the importance of holidays for work-caused stress relief.

And if you think they're stating the bleeding obvious, you may be right. But can the amount of leave we get make up for the full-on work model that has usurped the "Land of the Long Weekend" work ethos of 30 or so years ago?

In the strange buttoned-down, micro-managed world of work, the wage slaves get an average four weeks' paid annual leave and 10 public holidays' paid leave every 12 months.

That means 30 days leave for 260 days work (excluding weekends). Leave accounts for about 8.66% of the working year - less than one day in 10. So holidays really don't leave a lot of time to sink the blood pressure, treat the depression, thwart the migraines, let the fingernails grow . . . and forget the boss' bad breath.

That's if you can actually score holiday leave in the first place.

According to polling done for the Australian Institute a few years ago, 58% of full-time employees did not use all of their annual leave.

And of those who did not take all of their annual leave, 42% cited the main reason as being either too busy at work or the inability to get time off that suited their needs.

Getting away for holidays can be a nightmare for the omnipresent "working families", never mind the "forgotten people" of the tax system: the singles.

Both partners in a working family have to be granted leave at the same time and, if child-encumbered, dovetail those leave periods into school or even university vacation times - usually the summer break. And this is the busiest, most expensive and hottest time of the year to holiday/travel and look after kids.

Holidays are a whole lot easier for non job-addicted singles who are far more likely to return to work less stressed than working parents with children.

But the reality is that stress loads for all workers has gone up dramatically in the past 20 years as Australians have taken to working some of the longest hours in the developed world.

And leave simply hasn't caught up with that!

-- DAVID WILSON

© 2008 The Age

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