Out of office
If you’ve found yourself itching to get ‘OOO’ this summer, you’re not the only one: new data from the Labor Department shows that US workers have taken more vacation days in the first 6 months of 2023 than in any first half of the year for the 10 years preceding the pandemic.
The average number of US workers taking vacation from January through June went from 2.3 million in 2022 to 2.6 million in 2023, up some 11%.
The news is interesting in the context of America’s broader relationship with work. A Pew Research Center report published earlier this year revealed that, despite 62% of workers saying that a job offering paid time off for vacations was ‘extremely important’ to them, just 48% of US workers took all of the PTO that was offered.
Feeling the burn(out)
Following pandemic- and recession-related unease about taking days off, US employees seem to be finally embracing vacations, checking out more frequently and for longer stretches of time. This shift can’t come soon enough: a 2021 Mental Health America survey found that nearly 83% of respondents felt emotionally drained by their work.
The US is the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee workers paid vacation days — in fact, nearly a third of US employees have no access to paid time off at all. With increased emphasis on mental health, some companies, such as PwC and Priceline, are going as far as to enforce time off to boost staff morale. That seems to be more effective than the "unlimited PTO" policy — a perk that many feel comes with strings attached.
