The average American worker gets 14 vacation days a year and only uses 12 of them. That adds up to 226 million unused vacation days, or approximately $34.3 billion dollars of work. That’s amazing. It’s not that surprising though as we are in one of the worst periods of unemployment in quite some time and many people are probably cutting back on vacation days in order to be more productive. It’s not exactly fair but it’s human nature, if I’m concerned about getting fired then the last thing I’m going to do is take a vacation day. (
what do you mean by vacation? International travel is certainly stressful, but thats a far cry from sitting at home, watching movies, playing, enjoying family and getting caught up housework, etc.
I used: 366 days this year251 week days this year8 holidays (at my employer)12 vacation days (per this article)251 - 8 - 12 = 231 work days366 - 231 = 135 days off
231 / 135 = 1.711 work days per 1 day off. Not too shabby.
I'm not sure if it's the law in the U.S., but every employer I've had pays out unused vacation time when you leave.
Earned but unused vacation time is listed as a liability in financial reporting. This is why most firms cap the number of days you can accumulate before you start losing it.
I don't understand why one would expect the end-of-year balance to be zero. Wouldn't you expect it to be somewhere between 0 and the maximum you are allowed to accrue?
Particularly since most jobs pay you for unused vacation balances when you leave...
Part of the explanation might be that the oppurtunity cost of taking a vacation day is less for Americans than most others, because they make more money and like their jobs more.
In my country if you do not take your vacation days then the employer must pay you for the number of days that you are still owed when you leave the employer. Thus untaken vacation is considered a debt that the company owes.Many of the employees, including myself, have accumulated quite a few days of leave over the years and so now my employer is demanding that we take extra days each year to reduce this liability they have. They even have a formal policy that vacation planning must be discussed during our annual reviews.
I don't take all my vacation days because I want to keep some "in reserve". I want the flexibility of taking a week or two off on short notice rather than having to plan my usage far in advance. Of course that means I'll never use all of them since once I leave my job they will disappear (in the form of more money, but still).
From the first quote: "It’s not exactly fair but it’s human nature, if I’m concerned about getting fired then the last thing I’m going to do is take a vacation day."
Not one of those quotes endorses a signaling reason to skip vacation days. Only the last even mentions that people believe in such a reason, but it disagrees.
what do you mean by vacation? International travel is certainly stressful, but thats a far cry from sitting at home, watching movies, playing, enjoying family and getting caught up housework, etc.
It varies by state. This is illegal in California, but allowed in Alabama. No surprise there. http://finduslaw.com/can-my...http://www.alalabor.state.a...
I just got a job in the US and can tell you that it explicitly does not pay for unused vacation time when you leave.
Whoops, by "less" I meant "more".
Yes - about 17 work days per vacation day.
BUT - about 1 day off for every 1.7 days worked.
I used: 366 days this year251 week days this year8 holidays (at my employer)12 vacation days (per this article)251 - 8 - 12 = 231 work days366 - 231 = 135 days off
231 / 135 = 1.711 work days per 1 day off. Not too shabby.
I'm not sure if it's the law in the U.S., but every employer I've had pays out unused vacation time when you leave.
Earned but unused vacation time is listed as a liability in financial reporting. This is why most firms cap the number of days you can accumulate before you start losing it.
I don't understand why one would expect the end-of-year balance to be zero. Wouldn't you expect it to be somewhere between 0 and the maximum you are allowed to accrue?
Particularly since most jobs pay you for unused vacation balances when you leave...
Part of the explanation might be that the oppurtunity cost of taking a vacation day is less for Americans than most others, because they make more money and like their jobs more.
I thought that most research actually showed that vacations are stressful and do not make you happier.
So how do signalling incentives explain the fact that taking all your vacation days is the absolute norm in other countries?
In my country if you do not take your vacation days then the employer must pay you for the number of days that you are still owed when you leave the employer. Thus untaken vacation is considered a debt that the company owes.Many of the employees, including myself, have accumulated quite a few days of leave over the years and so now my employer is demanding that we take extra days each year to reduce this liability they have. They even have a formal policy that vacation planning must be discussed during our annual reviews.
I don't take all my vacation days because I want to keep some "in reserve". I want the flexibility of taking a week or two off on short notice rather than having to plan my usage far in advance. Of course that means I'll never use all of them since once I leave my job they will disappear (in the form of more money, but still).
Yeah, but the preceding sentence (falsely) claims that skipping vacation increases productivity.
The sentence after the excerpt could be interpreted as it being about signaling, though.
In my experience, signaling dedication is just as important (if not more important) than signaling productivity.
From the first quote: "It’s not exactly fair but it’s human nature, if I’m concerned about getting fired then the last thing I’m going to do is take a vacation day."
Not one of those quotes endorses a signaling reason to skip vacation days. Only the last even mentions that people believe in such a reason, but it disagrees.