Don't be a work martyr: The case for taking more vacation leaves

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Compared to the past four decades, Americans are currently taking less time off work. The decrease is evident in comparisons of average paid time off that employees took in 2000, which was at 20 days, to just 16 days in 2013.

Today’s workers are either too dedicated to their work or are wary about asking for vacation leaves because they fear losing out on opportunities for a promotion or a raise. Studies have shown that employees who had paid time off left up to five days unused. While they could bank those unused vacation leaves for the future, they still permanently lost up to 1.6 days of paid leaves even if they’ve earned it.

Image Source: theweek.com

This trend has some negative effects on the economy. In total, American workers permanently lost 169 million days of paid time off. Such figure is equivalent to billions of dollars in unused benefits and essentially provided their employers free work at an average $504 per person. If more workers took 20.3 days of vacation every year, which was the average between 1976 and 2000, it would amount to 768 million additional days and result in $284 billion of economic impact–with $118 billion in direct travel spending.

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Apart from the economic impact, taking time off from work benefits workers in other ways. With work-life balance, workers tended to be happier, healthier, and more productive at work. It is also important to note that using up paid time off has no impact on a person’s eligibility for a raise or a promotion, so it is much better for workers to relax and recharge from time to time to ensure higher productivity and work satisfaction.

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