Why some nations need fewer public holidays – DW – 09/01/2025 | EUROtoday

Scrapping public holidays is in vogue. In July, French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou proposed eliminating Easter Monday and Victory in Europe Day (May 8) from France’s annual record of 11 public holidays. Outrage ensued, with political leaders from throughout the spectrum attacking the plan.

Bayrou mentioned the transfer would assist France ease budgetary pressures. He is not the one one to have come up with such a proposal.

Earlier this yr, Slovakia minimize one in all its public holidays in an effort to enhance its fiscal place, mirroring a transfer made by Denmark in 2023, when it eliminated a post-Easter vacation. Copenhagen’s reasoning was that it wanted to create fiscal area to fulfill rising defence budgets.

Across the Atlantic, US President Donald Trump has gotten in on the act. On June 19, he wrote on his private social media web site that “too many non-working holidays in America” had been costing “billions of dollars.”

Many interpreted the feedback as a political assertion as a result of he made them on ‘Juneteenth’, a day that commemorates the tip of slavery and which was made right into a public vacation by the Biden administration.

But is there adequate proof to counsel that nations with fewer public holidays are extra economically productive?

Mixed proof

“Evidence to support this idea is limited,” Charles Cornes, senior economist with UK financial consultancy Cebr, advised DW. “Productivity is driven less by the number of public holidays and more by factors such as labour efficiency, capital investment, workforce skills, and technology.”

Studies counsel very minor will increase in gross home product (GDP) are attainable because of chopping holidays.

A 2021 research by researchers Lucas Rosso and Rodrigo Andres Wagner discovered that public holidays may very well enhance demand for some subcategories of GDP, but additionally that when public holidays fall on weekends and aren’t changed, there’s a small enhance in GDP.

However, research by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Germany’s Bundesbank discovered that any enhance in GDP could be proportionally a lot smaller than the rise in whole working days.

In idea, a day without work work for a employee implies that employee’s productiveness is zero for that day. There can be the argument that employee productiveness slows within the days round public holidays as nicely, as many individuals take these off these to maximise their time without work.

While chopping a public vacation might result in elevated tax revenues for a authorities, there are counter-arguments that days off enhance employee well-being in the long run, which can additionally impression productiveness.

“There is evidence to suggest that without more vacations and holidays, workers are at a higher risk of burnout, and this could lead to a decline in worker well-being more holistically,” Adewale Maye, a coverage and analysis analyst with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, advised DW.

Public holidays and paid trip time

The debate on public holidays is a part of a wider dialogue on working hours general. Germany, the UK and the Netherlands are among the many nations making an attempt to sort out sluggish financial progress by reversing latest drops in common working hours.

However, scrapping public holidays is a separate thought from encouraging extra labor pressure participation — for instance, by encouraging those that work part-time to work longer hours, as Germany is doing.

That usually provokes a far much less intense response than the thought of eliminating nationwide holidays altogether.

When public holidays and statutory paid trip days are added collectively, most nations within the OECD have between 30 and 36 paid days off for staff yearly, in line with a 2020 research.

The US as an outlier

Some of the nations with probably the most mixed days, comparable to Austria (38), Denmark (36) and Finland (36) even have among the many highest GDP per capita on this planet.

The US is the one OECD nation that doesn’t have any statutory go away. It has 11 public holidays, however in line with Adewale Maye, many industries comparable to retail, tourism and transportation nonetheless function throughout public holidays as staff aren’t assured paid days off.

He factors to all the opposite OECD nations that present statutory trip days with out damaging their economies. “These economies have done well for themselves while also allowing workers the right to rest,” he mentioned.

He says that is likely one of the central arguments towards President Trump’s speculation that the US has too many “non-working holidays.”

“Working more has never been the issue in the United States,” he mentioned. “Building an economy where all workers and their families can feel supported, secure, and can thrive is.”

Worker productiveness elements

Charles Cornes says it may very well be true, given the dimensions of the US, that asking companies to shut for the day may have a materially detrimental financial impression. However, he says every sector is totally different.

“Hospitality and retail, in particular, often see an uplift in activity, providing much-needed support to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers that have faced sustained pressure from the growth of e-commerce over the past decade,” he mentioned.

He emphasizes that employee productiveness in the end comes right down to different elements and isn’t merely a case of hours labored.

“For example, if Germans were working fewer hours but producing the same level of output within these reduced hours, this would not damage the economy and could instead be beneficial both socially and economically if people had more free time to spend on experiences.”

Edited by: Ashutosh Pandey