Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
We should have an extra Public Holiday in the Autumn
Jasmine Birtles
11th Sep 2015
It’s daft that we have a load of time off over Christmas, then a bunch of days off around Spring and Summer then nothing from end of August to end December. I can’t think of many people who wouldn’t like another public holiday in Autumn.
I’m a business owner and I think it would be good for business, not harmful, to have at least one more holiday day, ideally two in the year.
We have the lowest number of public holidays in Europe (8) together with Holland.
Cyprus has the most public holidays (15), followed by Malta and Spain (14), Austria and Portugal (13).
Now I will admit that apart from Austria, these countries are not exactly models of economic excellence, but it shows there’s room for at least a one more public holiday here in Britain per year.
Not only does it help workers to have an extra duvet day or time with the family, giving them the chance to recharge their batteries and get a bit more of a balance in life, but it helps parts of the economy that would otherwise struggle:
- The entertainment industry does well on these days, particularly leisure parks
- The hotel industry benefits from people going away for long weekends
- The travel industry does well from people flying abroad
- Retail does well as people go to shopping centres and garden centres on these days
- Restaurants benefit from families going out for a special treat
- Supermarkets do well as people have parties, BBQs and dinners for friends
In other words, people spend in areas where we need a bit of spending.
It’s supposed to be bosses that are unhappy about having to pay their workers for a day off, but, seriously, as a boss I’m pleased to see my workers having an extra day to rest and recharge and frankly I need one too!
Back in 2012 when we had an extra public holiday for the Jubilee the BBC looked at the cost per holiday to the country’s purse.
It says in this article:
In April, a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research suggested that each bank holiday costs the UK economy £2.3bn and scrapping the lot of them would boost annual output by £19bn, although the think tank admitted the task of quantifying the impact was “difficult”.
By contrast, an impact assessment of the extra 5 June break by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport put the “best estimate” at a £1.2bn loss to the economy.
However, this was within a broad margin of error. It said there could, in fact, be a boost to the economy as great as £1.1bn to GDP – or a loss of as much as £3.6bn.
So, not exactly a definite result.
Sometimes you have to go with your gut and mine says HAVE A HOLIDAY…ideally at least one in the Autumn and maybe another in the Summer.
Let’s get the Government to listen because we all need a break!
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