Almost two thirds of workers don’t bother to take their holiday entitlements from the office, with a new survey showing that 63.9 per cent don’t use up their entire annual leave allocation each year. Some 40.7 per cent of those surveyed have between two and three days left over at the end of the year, and 16.7 per cent have as much as a week remaining.
According to the survey by hotels.com, being too busy at work is cited as the main reason for not taking holidays (34.6 per cent ) followed closely by simply not getting around to taking holidays (21.2 per cent ); 13.5 per cent claim that they are afraid to take holidays because of pressures at work while 5.5 per cent of people say they have no one to go on holiday with.
The poll also showed that over half of respondents take a week off at a time but almost one in four (24.2 per cent ) prefer to take only one or two days at a time. Only 14.5 per cent of people say they take a two week holiday from work.
Not using up the allotted holiday allowance is clearly a bugbear with many Irish workers, with 54.4 per cent of people saying that they resent not getting to take all their holidays and a resounding 84.5 per cent stating that they think people should use their annual leave where possible. Only 8.6 per cent of people believe that people shouldn’t take their annual leave.
“It is surprising to see that almost two thirds of people are not taking all their holiday allowance each year, especially when one third (33.3 per cent ) of people polled say they are not permitted to carry over those extra days into the next year,” said Alison Couper, communications director at Hotels.com “Taking time off is a great way to de-stress and recharge the batteries and there are some fantastic deals on offer at the moment so you can really can get away for less.”
