Hungarian employees are given more days off than most of their European peers, but many are reluctant to take the full amount for fear of losing their jobs, Nepszabadsag daily said on Wednesday.
Hungarians are able take off between 20 and 30 days of paid holidays – on top of 10 bank holidays – depending on their age, the paper said.
But employees are often expected by their company to work even when officially on holiday.
Some companies have taken to the (illegal) practice of paying employees for time spent working instead of a holiday, the paper said, citing the national work-safety authority. Andras Gedeon, the authority’s spokesman, said that in the first nine months of 2009, inspectors had uncovered violations affecting 8,000 employees.
Zoltan Hodi, vice-president of the ironworkers’ trade union, told the paper about frequent conflicts between employees and employers. In most cases employers disregard individual holiday plans and release their work force as it best suits production purposes. Companies tend to encourage their workers to take a holiday when market demand is low, though more and more employees are ready to go without a holiday thinking that they might be laid off if not seen at work, the paper quoted Hodi as saying.