According to the tagline for the 1991 film "City Slickers," "All you need in life is love, courage and paid holidays." Indeed, some of us may find meaning to our lives through single-minded devotion to our jobs, but without leisure time our bodies and minds would inevitably putter out. Taken to extremes, we may even start to wonder what we are living for.
In Japan, people have the "right" to work. They also have the right to rest. In this month's column we will address annual paid leave, or nenji yūkyū kyūka, a right guaranteed by Article 39 of the Labor Standards Law.
The law stipulates that employers must grant 10 paid holidays to workers employed more than six months who have worked at least 80 percent of their designated workdays during that period. The number of newly allotted paid holidays increases with each year of continued employment until it hits 20 days. You also have two years to take newly acquired paid leave — use them or lose them.