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Calls for four extra bank holidays a year in England including one just before Christmas
After this weekend’s bank holiday, we definitely need an extra day off…
It’s the Tuesday following the last summer bank holiday of the year and our next extra day off won’t be until Christmas, so you’ll be forgiven for feeling a little down in the dumps today.
However, there is a potential glimmer of hope for all of you despising being back in the 9-5 grind after three glorious days off: Union bosses have been calling for four more bank holidays per year.
Evidently hit hard with those back-to-work blues, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady has slammed England and Wales as ‘stingy’ for only offering eight public holidays across the twelve months of the year.
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O’Grady said a new autumn bank holiday would ‘break the long stretch’ and would help to bring the UK in line with the rest of the world.
She said: “After August, there’s no national holiday until Christmas… And that’s because the number of holidays we get is so stingy compared to other nations.
“A few more public holidays would be a great way to thank working Britain for getting us through these tough times, and it would level us up with other workers around the world.
“It’s time for a national conversation – when should our new holidays be? What might they celebrate? An autumn holiday to break the long stretch to Christmas would be a good start.”
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Compared to the European Union, the UK offers citizens the smallest amount of bank holidays; Romania, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland and Cyprus all give their taxpayers fifteen days off on top of their annual leave and weekends – that’s nearly double what we get here in the UK.
Further afield, there are seventeen public holidays in Japan, twelve in Australia and eleven in China and New Zealand.
Though this isn’t the first time there has been mention of extra bank holidays – when England reached the final of the Euros 2020 tournament (we’re still grieving over that, by the way), Prime Minister Boris Johnson hinted at the possibility of an extra bank holiday… Though, of course, it didn’t happen. Boo.