Queen Platinum Jubilee Mall UK

National holidays cost the United States 325 billion every year

In the UK we’ve just enjoyed a long four day weekend thanks to two bank holidays to celebrate the Queens Platinum Jubilee.

My colleagues in the Netherlands will be enjoying a day off on the day this post goes out. Another national holiday.

It got me thinking; what countries have the most national holidays? And what is the economic impact of this time off?

Results

National Holidays by Country

National holidays per year by country (2022)

Download chart.

Country Number of public holidays
Mexico 8
Taiwan 9
Brazil 9
Iran 26
Nepal 30
Myanmar 32

Full rankings.

The average number of national holidays across the 67 countries considered is 15. Myanmar has 32 — that’s more than one month of holidays!

National Holiday and affect on productivity

Lost GDP per day (billions) at 50% downtime by Country

Download chart.

Country Number of public holidays Lost GDP per day (billions) at 100% downtime Lost GDP per day (billions) at 50% downtime
United States 11 59.15 29.58
Japan 16 14.51 7.26
Germany 13 10.81 5.41
Kosovo 11 0.022 0.011
Liechtenstein 22 0.020 0.010
Fiji 10 0.012 0.006

Full rankings.

Here the figures assume two scenarios

  1. that during a lost day to a national holiday, output is stopped completely (downtime = 100%) — which is obviously not the case
  2. output is reduced by 50% — probably more accurate

If we assume output drops by 50% on a national holiday, the US still forfeits over $29.5 billion per day! Assuming all national holidays equate to working days off, thats over $325 billion of potential output being lost!

National Holiday and working hours

Actual employment rates are hard to measure (unemployment rate in many countries only captures those of working age seeking a job — not those intentionally unemployed). That being said, it gives us a figure to go off to estimate lost working hours.

Similarly, not all jobs will be 8 hours (what I’ve assumed), nor will all workers get national holidays off.

Lost working hours (assumes ave 8 hrs) by country (2022)

Download chart.

Country Number of public holidays Lost working hours (assumes ave 8 hrs)
India 21 230217120000
Indonesia 16 30561984000
Bangladesh 22 28552392000
Estonia 10 102327280
Fiji 10 67782400
Liechtenstein 22 6407104

In the worst case, that’s two hundred thirty billion two hundred seventeen million one hundred twenty thousand (230,217,120,000) working hours Indians collectively enjoy on national holidays. This is definitely an over-estimate of actual hours, but assuming 50% of this assumption gives a total 115 billion national holiday hours for workers. This equates to about $80 billion in GDP (assuming a 50% reduction in output on these days).

And finally…

As you already know, this post is nowhere near accurate. I am a proponent for more downtime not less. In many studies, a shorter working week produces the same level output, thereforeย enjoy your holidays everyone!

Improvements

I compiled an incomplete list of national holidays by country so an obvious improvement would be to obtain a more comprehensive (and validated list). I’ve also made some huge assumptions, (1 national holiday is equal to 1 day off work, 8 hour working day, etc).

tl;dr

I estimate that Indians collectively enjoy over 115 billion national holiday hours (21 national holidays) resulting in an estimate $80 billion USD hit to the countries GDP.

Get the data

  1. Data sources + data used in this post.
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