Americans Wasted 768 Million Vacation Days Last Year

American workers get a raw deal on vacation compared to other developed countries. The U.S. remains the only advanced economy that does not guarantee paid vacation while a statutory minimum is very much the norm everywhere else. In France and Spain for example, workers get at least 25 and 22 paid days off per year respectively. It might then come as a surprise to hear that U.S. workers managed to waste 768 million paid vacation days last year despite their miserable vacation allowance. That's also a 9 percent increase on the amount wasted in 2017.

The U.S. Travel Association, Oxford Economics and Ipsos published the data which showed that out of the 768 million unused days, 236 million were completely forfeited with $65.5 billion lost. 55 percent of American workers failed to avail of all their vacation last year. On average, people took 17.4 days off which marks a slight improvement on 2017. That's still far less than the period between 1978 and 2000 when 20.3 vacation days were used up on average.

Americans used just over half of their paid time off work for travelling - 9 out of 17.4 days. The analysis states that if they used more of that time for trips, the travel industry would see an extra $151.5 billion in spending with 2 million jobs created. Rather than a culture of overworking, the rise in unused vacation can be attributed to the steady expansion of the U.S. workforce. That has resulted in the number of earned days off increasing quicker than workers can use them.