World Transfers

[Tel'aran'rhiod]

In the USA, aside from mainly retail, dining & entertainment (movie theaters), critical & emergency services, and SOME technical support lines (mainly corps such as Adobe, Microsoft), nearly EVERYONE has the day after Thanksgiving off work - either as a paid holiday or un-paid time off (if they have the USA traditional standard Mon-Fri 40 hour work week).

For the programmers and such at Turbine, the retail Black Friday means nothing but an extended holiday weekend - though it means EVERYTHING to WalMart, where NO-ONE gets that day off (except I did when my mom died on that day).

You may want to scroll up for my note about the biggest employer by far not giving employees that day off (and people can't all just take it as an unpaid day). Here in Boston several of the biggest employers in the city also don't give people that Friday off. Some offer a choice of dates (Columbus Day or that Friday, but not both). With federal employees working and many orgs following their lead for holidays, lots of people end up working. I'm happy to say I'm not one of them!

Edit: looks like the most recent SHRM survey indicated ~25% of the U.S. will not treat that Friday as a holiday. That's better than last year at least (33%). This survey included responses from 600+ randomly selected HR professionals at organizations of all sizes throughout the United States.