Americans don’t take enough vacation days.
That may be changing, according to the latest research by Project: Time Off. Their annual survey, conducted by market research firm GfK, found that the average American worker took 16.8 paid days off in 2016–nearly .
5 days greater than the year before. The findings came from an online survey of 7,331 American workers who work full-time and are eligible for paid time off.The trendlines since 2000 have shown Americans taking fewer vacation days each year, so the significant recent uptick serves as a potential indication of a paradigm shift towards a better work-life balance. There may be some catching up to do; the average amount of paid vacation days used by American workers between 1976 and 2000 was 20.3 days per year.
Americans are taking off far less time than other countries. Americans often look at vacation habits in countries like France and Spain with a mix of envy and amusement (both have 36 days/year of mandated paid vacation), but even the United Kingdom has 26 days of mandated paid vacation for full-time employees.
The United States stands out as the only industrialized country not to have mandated paid vacation for full-time employees.
The vacation policies vary dramatically through the American workplace, along with the work-life balance focus (or lack thereof) within each company. A major distinction that we often overlook is that having paid vacation time is not the same as taking paid vacation. The research by Project: Time Off found that the average American worker left over five days of unused paid time off last year. 25% of the workers surveyed have a “use it or lose it” policy with paid time off (PTO).
Why Would Workers Not Use Vacation Days?
Even though 96% of the Americans surveyed said that using their PTO was important to them, a significant portion do not follow through on that desire. 39% of the workers surveyed said they wanted their boss to view them as a “work martyr.” However, this type of sacrifice may not pay off career-wise. According to study, those that forfeited their PTO were less likely to get…
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