Americans Not Taking Vacations Is a $224 Billion Problem for Employers


Skift Take

It looks like it's a lose-lose for U.S. employers who are stingy with their vacation policies, and overworked employees eventually have the last laugh when they receive their vacation compensation payouts when they leave their companies.
The Americans not using their vacation time end up eventually getting it anyways, or at least compensation for it, and a study found U.S. employers' wallets could take a hit worth hundreds of billions of dollars because of this. Skift conducted its own survey in January finding nearly 42% of Americans didn't take a single vacation day in 2014, along with four other surveys from last year all spelling out many Americans don't take enough vacation time for a variety of reasons such as age, sex or income level. "Project: Time off," a study done by Oxford Economics, a commercial venture of Oxford University's business college, was commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association. The study points to some $224 billion as "vacation liability."  U.S. companies must pay employees when they retire or leave the company for this unused vacation time or paid time o