In many parts of Europe, it’s common for workers to take off weeks at a time, especially during the summer. Envious Americans say it’s time for the U.S. to follow suit.
Some 66% of U.S. workers say companies should adopt extended vacation policies, like a month off in August, in their workplaces, according to a Morning Consult survey of 1,047 U.S. adults.
A lot of people seem to be confused by the “entire month of August off” thing, there is a bit of background to that, namely that factories shut down production in August for 2, sometimes 3 weeks. I’m not sure if this is a general thing, but all the factories that I worked with across Europe were doing this.
Some of it comes from heavy industry, with the time of machinery that you just don’t turn off and on . The big steel makers for example, would only stop the furnace for the summer break (last week of July first week of august). And Christmas. Holiday was mandated at that time - known as the “factory weeks”
A lot of it comes from August being fucking hot, which makes it hard to work. Not everyone is an office worker in an air conditioned environment.
There are industries that do this in the US too, such as car manufacturing. However even then, the plant is shut down for a week or two, and you are required to take your vacation during this period. …. Except of course the people going in to do all the plant maintenance, who are prohibited from vacation during that period