"How Much 'Useless Vacation'? Layoff Concerns Amid Substitute Staff Shortage"

46% of US Workers "Can't Use All Their Vacation"
South Korean Employees, on Average, Use Only 12 of 17 Annual Leave Days

Nearly half of American workers, 46%, fail to use all of their allotted vacation days.

According to a survey conducted by the U.S. polling organization Pew Research on the 30th (local time), out of 5,902 American workers surveyed, only 48% responded that they "use all their given vacation days," while 46% said they "take less time off than allotted."

Regarding the reasons for not using all vacation days (multiple responses allowed), the main answers were "not needing all of it" (52%), "fear of falling behind" (49%), and "not wanting to burden colleagues" (43%). Following these were "concerns about career damage" (19%), "fear of job loss" (16%), and "lack of encouragement from the company" (12%).

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Recent analyses suggest that this is related to increased stress among workers due to large-scale layoffs and downsizing, reduced welfare benefits, and economic slowdown, especially in the U.S. IT industry. Kristy Pruitt Haines, Global Head of Talent and Performance at the workplace consulting firm NeuroLeadership Institute, explained that the biggest reason American workers do not take long vacations is "fear," stating, "Workers have been conditioned to believe that taking extended time off labels them as lazy or that someone else can do their job."

Additionally, unused vacation time is also linked to the rise of remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Paras Parker, Chief Talent Officer at employee management software company Paycor, gave an example: "For instance, if you have a hospital appointment, working remotely allows you to take a short break without using a full day of vacation."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, private-sector employees in the U.S. receive an average of 15 vacation days after five years of employment, and 20 days after 20 or more years of service.

The issue of not using all allotted vacation days is similar in Korea. Korean workers receive an average of 17 days of annual leave but fail to use about 5 of those days, according to survey results.

According to the recently released "2022 National Work-Life Balance Survey" by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (by Byun Su-jeong et al.), conducted from September 20 to October 7 last year on 22,000 people nationwide aged 19 to 59 (17,510 employed and 4,490 unemployed), wage workers with set annual leave had an average of 17.03 days of leave in 2021. Of these, the actual used annual leave days were 11.63, showing a gap of more than 5 days between available and used leave.

The reasons for not using all annual leave included "lack of substitute personnel" (18.3%), "excessive workload" (17.6%), "concern about supervisors' reactions" (11.4%), and "organizational atmosphere" (5.1%), indicating that more than half were unable to take leave despite wanting to. On the other hand, 36.5% voluntarily did not use their leave, citing reasons such as "to receive annual leave pay" (20.1%), "no vacation plans" (14.6%), and "preferring to work" (1.8%).

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