IRISH WORKERS ARE some of the most pushed in Europe when it comes to taking holiday days.
On average, we receive five days less than our European counterparts – despite a 5% increase in holiday days on the year before.
The study found Irish workers took an average of 22 days a year – while our continental neighbors were found to have taken 28 days.
Holiday deprived
It was also seen that almost half of all Irish people (46%) felt holiday deprived. Despite this almost 8% left a number of holiday days unused. In total, last year we had 3.3 million unused holiday days.
Although things might not be perfect here – they could be a lot worse. In the United States it was found that workers were entitled to an average of 15 holiday days a year and took 14 on average.
In Canada things are only slightly better with workers entitled to 16 holiday days a year and generally taking only 15.
Priorities
For many Irish people a lack of money was the main reason for not taking more holiday days. Other reasons included ‘work schedule does not allow’ and a wish to carry days into the following year.
Bizarrely, it was also found that one in ten Irish people would be willing to forego a shower for a week to be able to have one extra day’s holiday.
Bosses
The majority (77%) of Irish bosses were seen as supportive of their employees taking holidays. This was compared with 55% internationally. In France, only 28% of bosses were seen as supportive of employee holidays, and in South Korea, this figure was 33%.
Another finding in the report was that workers are now more inclined to take a number of long-weekend breaks throughout the year – rather than the traditional two-week summer holiday.
The results come from the 2014 Expedia Vacation Deprivation Study which looks at holiday patterns from 7,855 adults from 25 countries on four continents.
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