Introduction to Public Holidays
Cancer of public holidays is fashionable. In July, French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou proposed to remove the annual list of 11 holidays in France. Exignificance followed, with political leaders attacking the plan from the entire spectrum. Bayrou said that the move would help to make the household pressure easier. He is not the only one who came up with such a proposal.
Recent Developments
At the beginning of this year, Slovakia had one of its holidays in the efforts to improve their fiscal position and reflected a step of Denmark in 2023 when it removed a holiday after Easter. Copenhagen’s argument was that it had to be to meet rising defense budgets. On the entire Atlantic, US President Donald Trump has thrown on the crime. On June 19, he wrote on his personal social media website that "too many non-working holidays in America" "cost" billions of dollars.
Mixed Evidence
Many interpreted the comments as a political statement because he made it on ‘Juneteenth’, a day on which the end of slavery was reminiscent and which was made a holiday by the biden administration. However, is there enough evidence to indicate that countries with fewer public holidays are more economical? "The evidence of this idea is limited," Charles Cornes, Senior Economist at UK Economic Consultancy Cebr, told. "Productivity is less driven by the number of holidays and more through factors such as work efficiency, capital investments, skills of the workforce and technology."
Studies on Public Holidays
Studies indicate that a very minor increase in gross domestic product (GDP) is possible as a result of cutting celebrations. A 2021 study by researchers Lucas Rosso and Rodrigo Andres Wagner found that holidays can actually increase the demand for a few subcategories of GDP, but also that the holidays fall on weekends and are not replaced, there is a low increase in GDP. However, studies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Germany Bundesbank showed that an increase in GDP would be much smaller than the increase in the entire working days.
Productivity and Well-being
In theory, a working day for a worker means that the productivity of the employee is zero for this day. There is also the argument that the productivity of the employees slows down during the days in the holidays, since many people lose them from it to maximize their free time. While cutting a holiday can lead to increased tax income for a government, there are counter-arguments that increase the well-being of the employee in the long term, which can also affect productivity. "There are indications that workers have a higher risk of burnout without more holidays and public holidays, and this could lead to a decline in the well-being of the employee’s well-being,"
Holidays and Paid Vacation Time
The debate about holidays is part of a more comprehensive discussion about working hours as a whole. Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands are among the countries that try to combat the sluggish economic growth by reversing recent waste in average working hours. However, the scrap of public holidays is a separate idea from the encouragement more employment participation, for example by encouraging those who work part-time to work for a long time as Germany does. If holidays and statutory paid vacation days are added, most of the OECD countries are free for employees, between 30 and 36 free days.
The USA as an Outlier
Some of the countries with the best combined days such as Austria, Denmark and Finland also have the highest GDP per capita in the world. The United States is the only OECD country that has no legal vacation. It has 11 public holidays, but according to experts, many industries such as retail, tourism and transport are still working on public holidays, since the employees are not guaranteed to be guaranteed free days. He refers to all other OECD countries that offer statutory vacation days without damaging their economies.
Workers’ Productivity Factors
Charles Cornes says that, given the size of the United States, it could be true that the request to make companies in order to close the day could have an essential negative economic effects. However, he says that every sector is different. "Hospitality and retail in particular often see an increase in activities and offer traditional inpatient retailers who have been exposed to continuing pressure in the past decade due to the growth of e-commerce," he said. He emphasizes that the productivity of the employees ultimately depends on other factors and is not just a case of working hours. "For example, if the Germans worked less hours, but would produce the same level of production within these reduced hours, the economy would not damage this and could instead be beneficial both socially and economically if people spend more leisure time for experiences."
