How Much Vacation Time Do You Get?

This is like asking what is the average shoe size? You get the conditions at the company you work for. It doesn't matter if the industry average is x days off, if your employer averages 5 days less than the industry average.

It's very, very important you learn about the company you want to hire on to, not get comfortable with the average company and then assume you'll get the average. Time off, pay, working conditions depend almost entirely on the specifics of the job you are hired to do. I have a nagging suspicion these typed of questions are more about getting comfortable with randomly picking an employer than a survey of the industry. Maybe, I'm wrong.

There isn't an average company and the industry is vastly different from segment to segment, and companies vary widely within each segment.

I get 4-6 weeks off per year plus most holidays and every weekend. If you average me in with an OTR driver that is gone 6 weeks at a time what is our average amount of time off. Neither I or the OTR driver would be off that average amount between us. Carefully analyze your situation and even more carefully analyze your prospective employer. Like shoes, the most important thing is how do they fit, nothing matters as much as the fit between driver and company. The average condition in the industry is between ready to shoot up a post office and dragging around like a whipped dog. Don't be average. Your success depends on a good fit, not taking the industry average for granted.

 

You can take as much unpaid time off as you want regardless of the company you drive for. You just aren't going to make a decent living. If you sign a truck lease making you a IC, you're going to lose money every time you take time off, as you have truck payments and other fixed costs hanging over your head. If you need to be home every weekend, this job isn't for you. As a student driver, it's going to take you at least 3 months before you do go home as most companies discourage taking time off during training. In the past year that I've been driving for CRE, I had 4 days off total. A day off would imply a day out of the truck. As I earlier stated, that truck will become your new home. Even on days you're working on 34 hour resets, you're still in the truck, and still responsible for it.

Time off also has to be cleared with the company as most companies have policies on how much off-duty time you're allowed to have, ecpecially when under a load assignment.

 

Have to slightly disagree with you batman. As a company driver you cannot take as many days off, unpaid, as you want. No company is going to let their truck sit while your trying to get to know your family. Most of them have limits as to how long they will let that truck sit in your driveway before you have to turn it in. Now if you turn your truck in then yes they will let you sit for awhile.

 

My very own. I own my truck and trailer.

 

Remember if you work 20 on and 10 off or 14 on and 7 off, you are working about 2/3 of the time. If someone working full-time for this company makes $39,000 then you should expect $26,000.

 

At my company we get 2 weeks up to 5 years, then an extra day each year up to 3 weeks. We get 7 or 8 holidays, but you have to be available to work the day before and the day after to get paid. If you take a vacation day in conjunction with your holiday you will not get the holiday pay. Your vacation and holiday pay is somehow based on the number of hours you worked the year before.
Our hauling is tied to construction, so bad weather can give us a bad year, which affects the next years holiday/vacation pay. Sucks, but thats life.
Some of the guys will take vacation days when work is slow. Me, I take em when we want to go somewhere "on vacation", or to Italy this December to visit my son and his family.
I need to take more time off to, kind of practice not working, to get ready for retirement.