Expat Community > Colombia

fecherklyn
Joined 2015
Posts: 1459

Some useless information

2 years ago

I am full of useless information; here is a sample for those of you who have nothing better to do.

In the process of calculating the end of year payments due to our maid I had the need to determine how many days she will have worked in 2022. Whilst doing this, I looked at the number of Dias Bursatiles (Bank Holiday days) there had been. Of course, they vary slightly from year to year:

In 2021,there had been 16 dias bursatiles in addition to the Saturdays and Sundays.

So far in 2022, there have been 13 dias bursatiles up to today.

Let’s say the average year contains 16 dias bursatiles; that would mean working people do NOT work on 120 days of each calendar year
All this made me think of my father who worked 6 days of every week (8 hours per day), occasionally worked on Sunday (counted as overtime), and had two weeks paid holiday every year.

Things had changed enormously towards the latter part of my working life when the average work day was formally 7 hours/day and I had 5 weeks paid holiday per year. The reality was rather different though as my bosses informed me I could work the hours I wanted BUT 100% of my functions had to be completed to their satisfaction. WHATEVER; RESULT: most of the time I worked 10 hours per day and only took holidays when pushed by my bosses.

Put all of the above together and I think we can conclude today's Colombia is rather special. Colombia has the World’s highest level of Dias Bursatiles to my knowledge AND, let’s say,…the Colombian work ethic could do with some review? I don't dare look at relative productivity levels.

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