Britons ‘have least public holiday allowance’

People working in the UK enjoy the least public holidays, new research has found, which could have an impact on productivity in the workplace.

While the study by Mercer revealed that employees in Japan and India have some 16 days off annually due to public holidays, UK workers and those in the Netherlands and Australia have just eight days off.

However, in terms of holiday allowance, the UK was not far behind the leaders of France, Brazil and Finland, which offer up to 30 days of statutory holiday every year.

Workers in the UK benefit from 28, while people in India and China have just 12 and ten days of holiday entitlement a year respectively.

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Matthew Hunt, an employment practice advisor for Mercer’s International team, said: "Employers are often within their rights to ask employees to work on public holidays, or require that they be taken as part of their annual leave entitlements."

He added that because in the UK the statutory minimum holiday allowance is 28 days, companies are allowed to include the eight public holidays as part of this entitlement, so some employees may only be given 20 days holiday a year.

This may have an impact on the work/life balance, which talent management firm Morgan Redwood recently revealed could have an impact on business earnings.