
Ask HN: Why not give unpaid leaves? - techsin101
Imagine your life if you could get a month or two, or maybe even 4 months of unpaid leave from the job. It&#x27;d be incredible change in your life. You&#x27;d be able to LIVE every year. Get taxed less, sure make less, but in exchange live more. I&#x27;d always take May to Aug off. Travel, vacation, and play sports. Watch sunsets, camp, connect with family, and experience new cultures.<p>This would allow me to come back to work REFRESHED!!!. Maybe even have new ideas.<p>This would be better than paid vacation for companies.<p>Deep down all entrepreneurs want this, freedom. This is freedom.<p>Tech salary is high enough if spent conservatively to last few months easily.<p>Maybe some countries have laws that require employers to give unpaid leave.<p>Makes for better knowledge sharing as well. No risk of one employee leaving with entire knowledge. 4 months leave would naturally expose others in team to his&#x2F;her problem space.
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shajznnckfke
A couple of reasons come to mind:

1\. Your employer should be making more money off your work than they pay you.
This means that they are worse off if they employ you less often. The reduced
output will hurt them more than the reduced salary will help.

2\. The business keeps going when you are gone. If you are a tech worker, part
of your value is the ongoing development and maintenance of systems, or more
generally your handling of some issues. This work has to be transferred while
you are gone, which is disruptive. It’s like the switching cost of hiring and
training, which your employer would prefer to avoid. Other commenters bring up
consulting, where this can be clearly defined as not your job.

3\. Although it’s a valuable benefit that could help attract talent, it could
also select for less committed candidates. Asking for this in a negotiation
suggests you don’t _really_ want to be there.

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Fezzik
Maybe one day, but it involves changing the entire system. Example: I’ve been
an attorney for a decade, have paid off my debt, have a very manageable
mortgage and rental income, and could easily take a 40% paycut to work fewer
hours. I would love to do this. I could not have done this 10 years ago though
when I started practice - I had too much debt, rented a condo, and had no
assets to speak of. So employers are in a bind because filling part-time
positions can be difficult as most people entering the professional labor
market for the first time need full-time work because of the debt required to
get there. So if I get to work part-time now, once I leave my office my
employer would struggle to fill my job. Tech is a little a different, maybe,
but most people that start a family and buy a home want/need at least one
person working 40+ hours/wk to pay the bills and get insurance (another poorly
managed but intertwined issue). Also, even considering this proposition is
truly a luxury that only a tiny fraction of the population has. Which doesn’t
add to the conversation, but I find it depressing.

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anonymousiam
I know lots of people who do this. They are contract labor (or consultants if
you prefer that term). The contract is negotiated before work begins. Many
employers like to make the initial term short so they can terminate the folks
that don't work out. Most US states have "at will" employment laws so either
party can terminate at any time.

The drawback is of course that you will have no job stability/security, and no
benefits (unless you go with a big body shop).

If you have the skills and reputation, employers will want you on your terms.

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jjav
I had a friend who took 4-5 months off unpaid leave every year at our large
enterprise tech company. He had no dependents and was sufficiently
independently wealthy that he didn't particularly care if HR threw a fit and
didn't want him back. But he always came back, no issues.

I always wanted to do the same but I needed the income so didn't dare try.
Which is exactly how the companies want it.

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arsome
Screw taking 4 months off, I'd take every Monday and Friday off for the 40%
pay cut any day.

No one will offer me that job though.

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apotatopot
I'm doing 4 10 hour days a week and can swap my day off for whatever day when
I want. That's almost what you said, but without a pay cut lol.

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muzani
I could barely muster a 4 hour day, lol. I don't know how you could get more
done with a 10 hour day.

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vidanay
Because...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077391)

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google234123
Google allows 3 months of unpaid leave at request.

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cvhashim
You don’t have be google to allow this. My employer does this as well.

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amurthy1
Anecdotally, I've heard companies that tried this (something like 3 months
unpaid after 5 years tenure) found that most of the employees who take this
end up leaving soon after coming back.

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jtsiskin
This might also be because the employee stayed longer than they would have to
get these 3 months?
[https://danluu.com/discontinuities/](https://danluu.com/discontinuities/)

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curryst
Those months are unpaid, is there any practical reason why you would wait
until they give you 3 unpaid months rather than just quitting at any point?

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jtsiskin
Nope, I misread unpaid as paid.

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nine_zeros
Because healthcare is tied to your employment 35 hours a week in the US.

In other countries, similar laws trap employees into necessarily working even
if they could do the job part year.

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2rsf
Employers can continue and pay healthcare, social security or pension (where
applicable), but that will make the vacation more costly for them.

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robjan
Perhaps this would work for some people, but the majority of people don't have
the luxury of living life without responsibilities. If everyone took long
breaks, companies would be stuck in a cycle of handovers and making sure that
certain people aren't given anything important before their long break. If you
want that kind of lifestyle it may be a good idea to look into part time
consulting.

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war1025
Less extreme, but my first couple years out of college, the company I worked
for had a habit of running low on money during the summers. So we would end up
with about a week off unpaid each month June - Sept.

It was actually really nice. Kind of miss it. I guess alternately, I could
just get a job somewhere with a decent vacation policy.

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chrisgoman
Because work and life doesn’t revolve around __your __schedule?

If you are entrepreneur, it just gets worse unless you are the ~5-10% of the
super successful ones

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cvhashim
Most Teachers get summers off

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cordite
Oh paper it might seem so, but a teacher works far more hours outside the
butt-in-chair hours during in session and out of sessions. At least my AP
teachers did.

