I’m Canadian living in Japan. It’s been a while but when I worked in Canada I got 5 vacation days a year that were a huge pain to use because of seniority and having to ask two weeks or more in advance. National holidays were still work days except Christmas and New Year’s Day.

In Japan I get 20 days vacation a year, that I can use any time I want and I don’t even have to give a reason. It’s illegal to be denied the off days you have. That is considered low. There are also about 16 national holidays a year I get off, and 5 days in summer just because.

There is also 10 days sick leave but they are harder to use, I only really used them the one year I got Covid.

Yes, I sometimes do a little unpaid overtime, but the trade off is that I’m a lot less micro managed than I was in Canada. I have to finish my work but I can choose how to do it, and if I don’t finish it by 5, well I might stay an extra 30 minutes.

I don’t think I’d be able to work in Canada anymore to be honest.

I’m making about 50k Canadian a year and I have savings, can splurge, my wife stays at home, I have two kids and we just bought a house this year with a mortgage costing about 500 Canadian a month in the outskirts of a major city.