Millions Of Vacation Days Will Be Left Unused By American Workers

American workers are giving their companies a boost by not using all those vacation days.

U.S. workers on average won't use two of their vacation days by the end of the year, according to a survey from travel website Expedia, despite many of them making less while the corporations that employ them continue to see profits rise. That means 226 million unused days in total, CNNMoney calculated, or $34.3 billion-worth of time.

The tendency to work instead of vacation may be one way workers' economic troubles are helping their employers. American workers' said their top reason for not taking a vacation was because they couldn't afford it, according to the Expedia survey.

The recent findings mirror other reports signaling that U.S. workers are letting their vacation days go to waste. A survey released earlier this month from travel website, Hotwire, found that the typical American worker will have accumulated more than one week's worth of unused vacation days by the end of the year.

Still, U.S. workers are using more of their vacation days than some of their counterparts around the world, including Italy and Australia, who have more vacation days available on average, according to the Expedia survey. U.S. workers get 14 vacation days per year on average compared to 20 in Australia and 28 in Italy.

Meanwhile companies at home are squeezing as much as they can out of their workers. The amount of profit employers are making on each of their workers rose in 2011 for the second year in a row, according to an August analysis by Sageworks. At the same time, 90 percent of American workers said they don't expect to get a salary boost that will be enough to compensate for their expenses, a June American Pulse survey found.

But the trend may be reversing. Though U.S. worker productivity rose last quarter, the pace was slower than economists expected, indicating that worker efficiency may be reaching a peak, Bloomberg reports.

Comments

[thatskannada]

04:38 AM on 12/05/2011

What waste of heard earned leaves!

[star-child]

07:50 AM on 12/04/2011

In my company I can carry over 240 hours/6 weeks of vacation from one year to the next. Any accrued time over 240 hours will be cashed out just before Christmas. This year, like last year and the year before, I will carry over my allowed 6 weeks and cash out just over 3 additional weeks. I call my cash out my yearly bonus. Even though I have all this unused time accrued, I still managed to take a nice vacation and have numerous mini-vacations this past year. I managed this be sacrificing time off for a couple of years when this policy took effect. I realized most of my co-workers did not have the will power to accomplish this, but I knew I did. I gamed the system and won. WINNING!

[independentvoter007]

05:46 PM on 12/03/2011

This article is a perfect example of what is wrong with America today. Our parents' generation saw it as a source of pride to not use their vacation days. It meant that they were hard workers, and they valued their jobs and the company. Today, if someone doesn't use 2 vacation days, its considered an abuse by the company? No wonder China is outpacing us.

[luzmcosta]

10:56 PM on 12/03/2011

Wow. You're clearly not working through the level of exhaustion and subsequent illness the rest of us are. You actually think taking 12 days off total in a year is fair. This is fair for the elderly who work until they die out of economic necessity, or for parents who can't care for their children because they have to work for insufficient income and unfair wages? The report doesn't even seem to mention multi-job workers who have to sometimes take off from one job to make it to the other.

Your thoughtless comment and priorities (outpacing China) are cruel reminders of what our society cares about under the guise of productivity: maximizing profit.

[gseager]

11:20 AM on 12/04/2011

"Our parents' generation saw it as a source of pride to not use their vacation days. It meant that they were hard workers, and they valued their jobs and the company."

Not true. Our parent's generation used ALL their vacation time. Those who could afford it took their families on "family vacations."

Today, if someone doesn't use 2 vacation days, its considered an abuse by the company?

Three main factors contribute to this:

1. Materialism
2. Inability of some to afford days off
3. Real & percieved threats of being fired

"No wonder China is outpacing us."

Yes, In an unpatriotic act of selfishness, the owners of American companies are moving their buisinesses to China so they can take advantage of very low labor costs. The money they bring back to America is taxed at a very low rate or untaxed.

[CharlesBivona]

04:35 PM on 12/03/2011

The United States of America is abusive.

[peacekitten]

03:18 AM on 12/03/2011

vacations aren't luxuries.

they are necessities for a person's well-being.

[CharlesBivona]

04:34 PM on 12/03/2011

Welcome to the American Work Camp.

[Cassandra L Chapa]

04:47 PM on 12/02/2011

I have two weeks paid vacation, and I have to split it off into 'days off', partly because I can't afford to actually take any sort of 'real' vacation, and because my boss makes me feel guilty that he has to pay for a temp while I'm out...

I'm going on maternity leave in 6 months and will have to be back in 4 weeks beacuse it's too much of a 'hasstle' to train someone to do my job, plus, any temp that would do my work wouldn't be willing to do it for the pay I get, so my boss would be spending more money, AND two of those weeks will count as my vacation for next year...that's the economy for you!

[goodog]

02:19 PM on 12/02/2011

The 1% have learned how to pit the 99% against each other over the basics, like a livable, family-friendly wage, vacation, and sick time, even retirement, which are now seen as an extravagance. While boardrooms band together in collective executive solidarity, they dismantle the working class by stoking horizontal hostility that leads to workers undermining the gains made by others in their class instead of joining with them to fight for better for their own families. The 1% say, "See those people over there doing comparable work for better pay and benefits?" "What make THEM so special?" The 1%, who collude in the boardrooms to pay themselves 400 times more, stoking a war of envy between low-paid and moderately paid workers... and it WORKS!

[gseager]

08:37 AM on 12/03/2011

Well spoken. You nailed that one beautifully!

The basics NEVER used to come up for debate. The rich have been dumbing down the public for far too long. Vacation should be a given--period!

[jdmn17]

02:09 PM on 12/02/2011

Having spent 30 years in middle management I can tell you there is very subtle and pervasive pressure to leave your vacation time to evaporate and be lost. I worked in a use it or lose it place and believe me, the pressure to not go for anything longer than was necessary was there throughout the year. When you'd announce you were going on vacation my managers always seemed to come up with some "critical" meeting that forced me to cut my vacation short, then when the end of the fiscal year came and it was use it or lose it they would tell me to be sure to take vacation but there was that darn business planning for next year or a push to close the year with great sales so I'd toe the line like the rest of the lemmings and work through giving up a week or more of vacation. My bosses? They managed to get away because we were there covering for them.

[firehorse828]

01:49 PM on 12/02/2011

Screw the company. Why save them money- so they can give it to the execs? I don't get the logic- I can't afford to go on vacation so I'll go to work, not use my vacation days and let the company benefit. Who says you have to spend money- take a day trip, do something around where you live- or better yet, do nothing and relax. It's not like it would improve your standing in the company or change anything if they decide to lay you off.

[Shewolf68]

12:08 PM on 12/02/2011

I've never left money on the table in the form of vacation days. They have to be paid out at the end on the work term. Same with sick days.

Which antiquated state still does this to employees should have Occupy upntheir state butts to change that law to benefit the working man

[nanjemoy]

12:06 PM on 12/02/2011

But we get gigantic bonuses from the TARP and Fed bailouts, right? So, it's cool, right? Bonuses?

[olddognewtrick]

12:01 PM on 12/02/2011

Not in the public sector! In many cases public employees get paid for any unused vacation time and in some cases for unused sick time...when they retire...

[mjvoter]

12:27 PM on 12/02/2011

I have a state job and you have to accumulate an awful lot of sick time and then they only reimburse you for a portion of it when you retire, not all of it. So if you virtually never call in sick you might get a quarter of it paid but the average worker gets nothing.

[firehorse828]

01:54 PM on 12/02/2011

I'm a firefighter- we can save sick days and if we amass say 220 we can get paid for 180 when we retire- one time payout not annual. We cannot save vacation days- if they aren't used by the fiscal new year they are forfeited.

[jdmn17]

02:12 PM on 12/02/2011

Interesting statistic in MN - firefighters here seem to get more sick time off on Friday's and Monday's in the summer - any thoughts? Cost the city of Minneapolis a ton of money last year.

[viper1ex19]

11:56 AM on 12/02/2011

If these corporations are seeing this as income they should be paying taxes on it or paying it back to the employees.

[viper1ex19]

11:53 AM on 12/02/2011

This is a prime example of how the corporate greed works.

They don't stop at taking dollars away from you; they have people sitting at desks while I write this comment planning ways to take your money away from you right down to the pennies.

This reminds me of a movie that Richard Prior played in where he found a glitch in the system that allowed him to keep the ½ cent that the corporation didn’t know about and it made him a millionaire in no time at all.

I can’t remember the name but it was a good movie back in the early 80’s..

[jdmn17]

02:13 PM on 12/02/2011

Not the same movie but that was in Office Space as well

[scottwarhar]

11:10 AM on 12/02/2011

American worker have been forced into what amounts to a job trap.They make less for more and have no way of going to another job because employer are making more for less.When too few control too much they effectively eliminate competion and control the market place.This is truly the trickle down that Teapublicans advocate.The top vacuums up the wealth and trickles down the misery to the workers.