Public holidays in Portugal have just been reduced as part of the austerity measures imposed by the financial bailout package currently in effect. Four holidays, mostly Catholic religious observances, have been removed from the calendar. Of course, Anyone can chose to take time off to observe whatever holiday one desires but the ones that close a country down for a day cost businesses a vast sum when taken as a whole.
I have, in the past, been an employer and had to suffer the cost of bank-holiday that employees expect to be paid for.
I did a quick calculation for France where I live; a country that particularly likes its bank holidays and that chooses to place them on a tuesday or a thursday, giving employees the possibility to make a four day weekend out of a single day off. Remember, bank holidays apply at a national level for most employees so the actual cost to business could be calculated as:
No of employees * average wage * holidays
In France this works out to: about 15375000 employees on an average wage of 120 euros per day for 14 days per year so: 25,830,000,000 That's twenty five billion euros.
Vive la vacance!
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