Half of Small Business CEOs Say They Likely Won't Take Summer Vacation Due to COVID-19

On the 26th of last month, airport passengers wearing masks are moving towards the boarding gate at Gimpo Airport domestic terminal in Gangseo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) crisis, more than half of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) chief executive officers (CEOs) have not yet made summer vacation plans, according to a survey.

According to the Korea Federation of SMEs on the 15th, a telephone interview survey conducted from the 4th to the 8th of this month targeting 300 SME CEOs found that 51.3% of CEOs had not yet made summer vacation plans this year.

In the same survey conducted in 2018, about 26.7% responded that they had no vacation plans.

The reasons for having no vacation plans (multiple responses allowed) were led by "no capacity due to worsened business conditions caused by COVID-19" at 59.7%, followed by "no separate plans due to using occasional leave throughout the year" (29.2%), "impossible due to schedules such as business trips and group events" (11.0%), and "economic burden such as travel expenses" (11.0%).

Among the remaining 48.7% of CEOs who have domestic summer vacation plans this year, the most common vacation length was 3 days at 41.8%, followed by 5 days at 24.0%, and 4 days at 22.6%.

The planned types of vacation were visiting famous places or resorts at 51.4%, more than half, followed by resting at home such as reading or reflection (21.2%), visiting hometown relatives (9.6%), and leisure or sports activities (8.9%).

The summer vacation system of the companies they manage showed that 66.0% encouraged individual vacations using annual leave, and 28.0% designated specific periods for group holidays.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.