“… More than half (55%) of Americans didn’t take all their vacation days in 2015, up from 42% in 2013, according to a new study released Tuesday by the U.S. Travel Association’s Project Time Off. This is the first time it found a majority of workers are not using all their vacation time.” …
I’m in the 45% group.
This very believable. My husband never uses his yearly vacation time off.
My H never uses all his either. It was impossible to do in his last job and will equally be impossible in his new job. He gets 5 weeks plus personal days and takes about 5-10 almost all as 3 day weekends.
Back when I had 5 weeks of vacation I could not use them up, so I banked them up to the maximum allowable, and cashed out when I retired. Now that I’m starting over again, I don’t have enogh vacation hours and use them all up as quickly as I earn them. But it’s hard to be away from the office more than a week because there’s so much going on when I get back.
H can’t cash his in when he retires but can cash in all his unused sick days. He hasn’t taken any in 26 years so the monetary amount will cover both our Medicare premiums and the supplemental State health insurance. You can take it in cash but no one does. It’s really nice not to have to worry about paying for health insurance after he retires.
@novadad99:
These days companies don’t even let you ‘bank’ your vacation days (my current employer lets you carry over one week if you don’t take it, but it must be used up that year). There are a lot of companies out there that make the right noises, about how employees need downtime, the importance of vacation, how they have the rules about taking it to make sure employees take it, when in reality it is a benefit they want no one to use, it is window dressing. As it is becoming more and more Lord of the Flies as employees, with employers setting the rules, things like the 40 hour week, paid vacation and the like are going to become more and more like a Hollywood movie set, from the front they look substantive, look from the side they disappear. I generally use my vacation as days during the year, then use the balance over the end of year, but that hasn’t always happened either.
My husband doesn’t take all his either because he can cash them in for retirement. He takes the days, but can choose how to classify them (personal, family day, or sick). So I don’t think the numbers necessarily mean people aren’t taking time off.
It would be more informative to know how many days full-time workers are taking in all and how those days are classified. My husband gets 3 weeks of vacation. If he took 5 days of vacation + 4 sick days + 3 personal + 3 family it would be counted as only using one week of his vacation, but he’d still have a total of 3 weeks off. The numbers can be misleading. I don’t think most people get that much paid time off though.
@austinmshauri:
Every company is different. One thing is that at least among companies in the NYC area, I think banking vacation days is a thing of the past, and in terms of jobs I have seen posted and talking to people, I can’t think of the last time I heard of businesses that allow you to accumulate vacation like that. Sick days are another sore point, while company policy varies (some give you X days a year, some it is technically unlimited), more and more sick time is another of those things that are becoming discouraged as well, using up sick time (which used to be quite common) as vacation like that would get you an evil eye at many employers.
The amount of vacation is also being whittled down, places that used to offer 3 weeks now often only are starting at 2 weeks, and like I said, there are a lot of companies other than ones where they force you to take vacation (for example, where they shut down, or where someone is in a position where they have to take time off so they can audit what the person is doing,usually people who could embezzle and the like) where they offer ‘generous’ vacation time but you will be looked upon askance if you actually use it. If companies offer P days (or in my company, we don’t have P days, but we do have floating holidays because we don’t get a lot of the holidays many other companies do, for example Good Friday has traditionally been a holiday day on the financial markets in the US, but we don’t get that, we don’t get MLK, Veterans Day).
A few years ago I was working as a program manager and was doing endless proposal work. I was on the verge of burning out when I took a Christmas vacation for a week with my family. But I still had to do a lot of work while on vacation and was tied to my laptop coordinating the proposal in the middle of a bid and blackberry for conference calls.
We work for ourselves, so we don’t get any vacation pay. It IS tough to absorb the cost.
My son just started working a year ago and he only was able to use one week of his vacation. His boss has let him extend for a extra month. They really want their employees to take their vacation. He’s going to take the days and go visit college mates in NY and DC.
My company switched from have separate “banks” of vacation days and sick days to simply one bank of time called “Paid Time Off” (PTO). With PTO you don’t have to categorize what type of day you are taking off. I’ve been here forever so I get 5 weeks a year…and I use them! (We are only allowed to carry over 2 weeks.) We are also allowed to flex our time across a couple of weeks so you can bank some extra time one week and take time off later. (For example work 50 hours one week and 30 hours the next).
My H is a teacher so he doesn’t get any vacation days, but, of course, he gets summer and lots of holidays. He does get a handful of personal and sick days he can bank towards retirement. He rarely uses these days, so he’s banked a lot!
The only time my dh has taken all of his PTO was when we had a family member in the hospital or a parent dying. Otherwise, he takes less than half and is not able to bank the rest for future use or payment.
One of my kids does not take all earned PTO and cannot bank more than 80 hours. I’ve tried to encourage using it more often in half days or scattered days instead of losing it. This year that advice is finally being taken. Last month I received a nice email about the stress reduction due to taking more time off and thanking me. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
My husband mis-counted his days off last year and didn’t take off a week. I think he gets five weeks. He can’t bank any so if he doesn’t take it, it’s gone. I can’t bank any vacation time either. Neither of us can bank sick days and we rarely use them. One of our sons works for a start up that has no set vacation time. You just ask for time off! And, yes, that’s paid. In turn, no one feels that they can really take off for the heck of it. I don’t like it, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I love my job (generally) but I’m very careful about counting my days off and I take every one of them!
I have a relative who works for a very well known international consulting company (Big 6). They have a strange leave policy. If they take any of their vacation days, they have to make up the hours they were on vacation when they come back to work. So, in effect, they don’t have any paid vacation at all.
My husband uses his 5 weeks each year, he can’t bank it. My D started with 5 weeks (or maybe 6?) right out of college, I believe she uses most of it. My S has a couple of weeks a year but I don’t know if he uses all of it; he has gone on vacation with us but doesn’t travel much. I’m not sure it would occur to him to use it and stay home. (All he would do is play video games or read anyway.)
My employers never allowed for accruing vacation days carrying over from one year to the next.
I think it is crazy not to use vacation. I used every single day as did most of my coworkers. We worked hard and long hours.
In some industries, you are required to take vacation. In some banking/investment jobs, employees can be required to take a week or two of consecutive days off, to help sniff out any potential fraudulent activity. I wonder if Madoff and his accessories in crime ever took much time off?
If I ever owned my own business, I’d make vacation mandatory for numerous reasons, both to benefit the employees and the business.
@NoVADad99 - That’s awful!
@walkinghome - That’s not so great either…I like thinking of that time off as mine to do with as I want. Not something I have to ask for all the time (and be wondering…am I asking too much?)
@ClaremontMom, I agree. I took off a day this week and stayed home and puttered. Our fiscal (and vacation year) ends at the end of this month, so many of us has a day or two to use up this month. It also a busy time at work, I would have felt guilty if I was the only one taking off, and that (I think) is how people feel where my one son works. My younger son, OTOH, hasn’t been at his job a year yet and he accrues vacation time as he goes. He was checking and double checking to make sure he had enough time for the family vacation next month.
I am also self employed, so its a non-issue. DH never uses all of his. Some of the companies on the west coast are beginning to offer “unlimited” (so they say) vacation because so few use it. There are some caveats:
https://www.themuse.com/advice/10-awesome-companies-that-give-you-unlimited-vacation
http://www.fastcompany.com/3052926/lessons-learned/we-offered-unlimited-vacation-for-one-year-heres-what-we-learned
https://www.themuse.com/advice/unlimited-vacation-policy-what-you-should-know