294
Micro-retirement (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 41 points 5 days ago

Laughs in mandatory minimum four weeks paid vacation per year with most companies giving five to seven.

[-] [email protected] 36 points 5 days ago

That's called a "vacation," kiddos.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 5 days ago

I don't think it's the kiddos who are out of touch on this, just the business article writers lacking in meaningful content enough to write this drivel

[-] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago
[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

My first job allowed 5 days of time off a year. Sick and actual vacation were a part of those 5 days. To the people still working there, I imagine they actually would consider a full week off retirement.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Yikes! Fuckin' slavery, mate. You need better unions.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

They're probably American. Slavery is legal there

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

And all the while praising Freedom.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 5 days ago

Laughs in 45-leave-days-a-year oh you Americans and your "freedom".

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Americans who work for the government can compete with European levels of time off.

The poor souls who work in the private sector are the ones who don't get any vacation time.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 5 days ago

"In fact, there's no need to retire at all when you can just microdose retirement one week a year! Think of how much PTO you'll accrue by the time you're 80."

[-] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago

They will switch to unlimited PTO so they don't have to pay it out to your descendents when up drop dead on the keyboard

[-] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago
[-] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

As somebody who has "unlimited PTO" but can't take it, my PTO rollover is also capped, but in a different sense of the word.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Same. My company gives 2 weeks a year for the first 3 years and then one extra week after that. So generous!

[-] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago
[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

No, vacation is typically paid time off, your position is still yours when you return, and your pay progression/seniority/benefits/etc at least pick up where you left off.

Retirement is unpaid (after 12-18 months you would not get a meaningful pension), and since your relationship with the company is over they are free to hire someone else into your position and they have no obligations to you regarding any other work benefit or convention.

Micro-retirement sounds like a fun way to avoid paying vacation and providing job stability, similar to using "independent contractor" instead of "employee" to avoid employment standards.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago

This is such a bizarre phenomenon. Not "micro-retirement," but business news outlets learning about something that's incredibly normal but might have a new name or angle, and then writing it up as if it's this insane and reckless overreach (occasionally throwing the bone of "...though there might also be good reasons for this").

How do the writers behind a "micro-retirement" not get halfway through the research for this and then go "oh wait, I guess this is just normal PTO"?

Same with all of the "millennials are destroying X industry" articles. Literally just "oh, this generation doesn't like that product." Or "people are house-hacking" articles (literally just having roommates). Or "Quiet quitting" (literally just doing your job).

Probably this has a lot to do with people who are old, or who were born rich (or both) not remembering what it's like to be young and poor, I guess. Or having corporate pressure to write an article lambasting young people for not working hard enough. Or just feeling the pressure to write something every day.

I can't believe it's clickbait. That hasn't worked in a decade or more, right?

[-] [email protected] 19 points 5 days ago

Not clickbait, rage bait.

It’s just pro-corporate propaganda packaged in a way to drive engagement from both sympathetic corpo middle managers agreeing that nobody wants to work anymore, and burned out workers who kinda don’t want to work anymore under these conditions. Anything less than undying loyalty to our corpo overlords is worth writing a pressure piece about.

“Journalists” and other writers haven’t seemed to feel a duty to report objective truth in a long time. They have a duty to drive engagement and that attracts a completely different set of people than factual reporting.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago

As a millennial to gen-z, they did the same bullshit to us, I guess it’s your turn now. Just ignore them.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

As a contrast ... afaik some countries require every employee to take a certain amount of vacation days in one go each year or the employer can get fined (the employer has to organise that or grant the opportunity for employees). Eg if you get the minimum 4 or 5 weeks per year off you have to take at least 2 of them consecutively.

It's basically a forced leave that boosts productivity and lowers fluctuations for the entire county (+ it's good for people/families/culture).

But I assume the propaganda from the ~~meme~~ "news article" is pointing at/trying to normalise 0 leave days per year bcs why not:

The orange in the pic above are minimums for first-time employees.
This data perhaps show a better picture (including how many employees actually take all their contractual paid leave - I occasionally leave a day or a few unused bcs I forgeti):

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Norway here: This isn't completely right.

We have a right to minimum 20 days off every year, however they're not paid the first year. Every year, you "earn up" next years vacation. When you switch jobs, the job you're leaving will typically pay out your outstanding vacation money. To take an example:

  • Year 1 (job A): 20 days off (0 paid)
  • Year 2 (job A): 20 days off (20 paid by job A)
  • Year 3 (job A/B): Switch jobs to job B, get 20 days of pay from job A when leaving. 20 days off (0 paid by job B).
  • Year 4 (job B): 20 days off (20 paid by job B).

This effectively means that the only year in your life when you will be without 20 days paid vacation is your first year of employment.

Also, there are some minimum requirements regarding how much vacation you have to take, but you're not required to take out all 20 days (as your post seemed to indicate).

All the above of course applies outside of public holidays, which are always paid.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Neat info, didn't know about the first year.

Where did I imply you have to take all vacation days?
I've said a proportion, gave and example (two weeks or 10 workadays), and even posted a chart of proportion of people per country that actually use up all their vacation days. Eg 35% of Norwegian workers don't use all their vacay days.
Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

No worries :) I think it was

The orange in the pic above are minimums for first-time employees

Which made me think you meant "minimum" as in "you must take this amount off". I understand now that you meant "minimum" as in "employers must allow you to take this much time off".

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Ohh, that makes total sense, but I didn't figure it out! (Couldn't see it bcs I wrote it.)

And even with plural in minimums I could have added a few more words in there to make it a bit easier to read anyway.

Communication is hard, I'm abusing Lemmy comments just to maintain my poor skills :) (it kinda helps honestly, at least for some stamina).

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

It's fun to interact though :) and the graphics were really great! Thanks for posting them :)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Thx for interacting! :)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Makes me proud of my country 🫡🇩🇰

[-] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

Here I take micro-retirement of 4 weeks every summer, plus one week in wintertime.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Why not a one to two year break?

[-] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

Laughs in at least 25 days leave a year plus bank holidays too. UK isn't dreadful for everything.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

You gotta pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers.

Best regards,
Norway

...But it's still pretty decent.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Hey. I'm here to shame Americans, go easy on me.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Hva mener du? Vi har fem uker lovfestet ferie i året (pluss røde dager), er ikke det ca. det samme som Storbritannia?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Tror vi har to mer elns. Det var i hvertfall slik for en god del år tilbake.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

I have to wonder if this neologism comes from something like either their parents not taking any vacations and so they never got the examples ('Wait, you spend time with your kids?') or from a cultural aversion to taking time off for oneself. ('Taking time off? Sounds like someone's not really committed to the success of the company.')

[-] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Maybe also a little of column A, but DEFINITELY a shitload of column B

[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Choco rations to be raised to 20 grammes a week!

[-] [email protected] -2 points 5 days ago

gen-z professionals called "micro-retirement"

Why do these gen-z always love to come out with their own term. It's more like term-z now.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

You parsed it wrong.

It's "a new trend amongst gen Z" (regular old fashioned paid time off, and MUCH less of it than is the minimum in most other rich countries) that "career professionals" (older businesspeople, presumably bosses and sycophants without exception. Possibly just one person. Possibly that person is the author of the article) call it "micro-retirement to frame it as something new and scary.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Id imagine someone said it as a joke While lamenting that their company's PTO/vacation policies are bullshit, and then some yo-yo overheard it and decided to send it as an article. Gen-z are an interesting breed, sure, but this is over the top.

this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
294 points (98.7% liked)

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