90% of Small and Medium Enterprises Have Summer Vacation Plans

It was found that 90% of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have plans for summer vacation.

The Korea Federation of SMEs announced the results of the "SME Summer Vacation Plan Survey" on the 11th. This survey was conducted from June 24 to 28 last month, targeting 500 SMEs.

According to the survey, 92.8% of SMEs have plans for summer vacation. Regarding the method of taking summer vacation, 76.5% responded that they use "individual annual leave," which is more than three times higher than the 23.5% who said "separate annual leave granted." The average number of separately granted annual leave days was found to be 3.6 days.

Companies implementing collective leave accounted for 37.3%. The timing of collective leave was mostly ▲"late July" (53.2%) ▲"early August" (41.6%), and the duration of collective leave was mostly ▲"3-4 days" (67.1%) ▲"5-6 days" (19.1%).

Two out of three responding companies (62.3%) answered that they have no plans to provide separate vacation allowances (support funds) to their employees, while companies that do plan to provide such allowances (37.7%) reported an average amount of 563,000 KRW.

Meanwhile, the reasons for not having summer vacation plans among companies that responded negatively were ▲"using leave sporadically throughout the year" (63.9%) ▲"lack of manpower" (19.4%), among others.

The policy most needed to promote summer vacation among SMEs was "financial support such as vacation allowance support and corporate tax deductions for vacation expenses" (67.6%).

For revitalizing domestic travel, the necessary measures were ▲"providing travel vouchers and travel expense tax benefits" (60.0%) ▲"improving service quality and stabilizing prices at tourist destinations" (16.2%) ▲"improving infrastructure such as accommodation facilities and transportation" (11.4%), in that order.

Choo Moon-gap, Head of the Economic Policy Division at the Korea Federation of SMEs, stated, "The average annual working hours of Korean workers in 2023 is 1,872 hours, which is more than 130 hours longer than the OECD average of 1,742 hours, ranking sixth highest in working hours. Considering the activation of the tourism industry and the stimulation effect on the domestic economy through domestic travel, it is essential for the government to prepare active support measures to promote vacation use among SMEs."

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