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Comment by nixy | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Swedish developer. This year I have 7 weeks of vacation, and I plan to use it all. I normally get the 5 weeks required by law. Last year, I only used 4 of those 5 weeks, so one spilled over to this year. I also got a bonus week of vacation for working a lot of overtime last summer. So that makes 7 weeks.

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Also please note that this is paid vacation we're talking about.

In Sweden, we have five weeks of vacation by law. And, the right to take four of those weeks consecutively.

Indeed. It's not only paid, but I get 112% of my normal salary during vacation because your living expenses increase when you're on holiday.

Quite simply wow. As somebody with 24 holidays a year, ( sick leave included, which you tend to be a lot in India) all I can say is wow.

The latter is pretty nice - even in Germany, you only have a right to 2 consecutive weeks.

It's a function of the climate, if you excercise your right to four consecutive weeks, your employer has the right to pick the dates, as long as they are sometime between June and August, since that's when our summer is.

For this reason we have the "industrial vacation" in July when all heavy industry shuts down, since it's easier if everyone and the entire supply chain shut down at the same time.

In the UK these are often called "trade holidays" and used to be set on a city by city basis - this seems to have died out now that we have relatively little heavy industry left.

Hur kan man hitta ett jobb i Sverige? ;) Måste man talar svenska?

Hehe no, most often not. If you're a webguy, contact me (nixy at bede dot se). We're hiring in Stockholm! (The e-mail domain has nothing to do with the company, it is my private e-mail.)

Most jobs are advertised at the government-run (but great) Platsbanken

google-translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=...

I cant imagine Swedish would be much of an issue if you work with software development. Even outside technology, most swedes speak english well enough for basic communication.

Still, if you get a work permit (easy), you get to attend free Swedish lessons.

Nej. At least, I'd bet. But it might make it easier.

No. IT people tend to know more than enough english for english speakers to get along.

It also happen to be a huge lack of IT people on the market at the moment..

The flip side, of course, is that you have to survive our winters. :P

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