The United States is the only advanced economy that
does not guarantee paid time off.
We have no federal law saying that you have to
provide a certain number of vacation days and you have
entire cultures, like France is a good example,
where pretty much everybody takes August off and it's
just part of the culture.
You don't really see that here in the United States.
So when I came to France and I noticed that like vacation
is a way of life, people are constantly talking about
their vacations. August 15th is actually considered
the emptiest day in Paris.
Europeans in general will say, You Americans live to
work. We Europeans work to live.
Even though a majority of Americans do have some kind
of paid time off, a little less than half actually take
all of their available vacation time on.
On average, four days a year per individual being left on
the table as it relates to vacation days.
Something I noticed in America, yeah, we have
vacation days, but do people actually go on
vacation?
There's a certain fear.
We don't have any legal protections.
And so people have been fired for taking vacation
time.
I'm a workaholic by my very nature, right.
One of the things that I used to struggle with early
on in my career was I didn't want to leave because
I was afraid that people would think I wasn't needed.
I was going to lose the air of indispensability, that's
they call it, right? And in reality, that doesn't
happen.
More workers taking a vacation can help the
overall economy.
If Americans used the nearly 770 million abandoned
vacation days to travel in 2019, it could have injected
more than $150 billion into the US economy and created 2
million American jobs.
Paid vacations increase productivity.
They increase employee well-being.
It's also not rocket science. I think most of the
evidence suggests that it more than pays for itself.
So why aren't Americans going on vacation?
And what can we learn from our European counterparts in
France?
Europe has taken a different policy approach to
paid vacation time than the US.
Hi, my name is Fatima and I'm an American that has
been living in Paris for about 6 or 7 years now.
In France, you find less of that hustle culture
mentality, but it does exist.
I think there's a stereotype that the French
are not like hard workers, but in actuality you're
going to find people or industries where it's
expected that they stay in late.
It's expected that they work on the weekend.
In the European Union, the floor is 20 days of paid
vacation. That's on top of other sorts of paid leave,
like paid sick leave, paid new parent leave, that sort
of thing. And here we have basically nothing.
France provides a minimum of 30 paid vacation days per
year. There are also many European countries that have
paid holidays, which pushes them past France for most
paid days off total.
The reason EU workers have these vacation benefits is
regulation. The European Union Working Time
Directive, which was passed in the early 1990s, requires
at least 20 working days of paid vacation in all EU
countries. France has gone as far as implementing right
to disconnect laws, which regulate after hour contact
between employers and workers in an attempt to
protect workers' right to rest.
I think the reason why French people take their
vacations is because there are really, really strong
workers' rights and workers' protections through
the contracts that are set in stone.
France prioritizes leisure time so much that the
country established a public agency called the
National Agency for Holiday Vouchers, which helps people
who may not have the funds to go on vacation.
So everyone knows France is on vacation in August, which
means that come September 1st, that's when everyone
returns. And so in France, they have this thing called
La Rentrée, which basically means everything's back in
session. Businesses close for a couple of weeks.
I'm talking about your local boulangerie, some
restaurants, some stores.
It really does range.
Some offices even say, okay, we're close for, you
know, a week or two.
So our employees must take their vacation at this time
as well. I do not think that the fact that these
businesses or stores close actually affects the quality
of life because at the end of the day in France, it's
really about this idea of working to live, not living
to work.
The US is quite unique.
We have no federal law saying that you have to
provide a certain number of vacation days.
We have no state laws that say you have to provide a
certain number of vacation days to your employees.
It doesn't mean that nobody gets paid vacation.
It just means that it's up to the employer and the
worker.
Nearly 80% of full-time private sector workers in
the US have access to some sort of paid time off for
leisure. But when you dig into those numbers, there's
a huge disparity about which Americans actually get
it. Only 43% of leisure and hospitality workers have
paid vacation time, while more than 90% of those in
sectors such as manufacturing, financial
activities and information services do.
Even if the US did mandate paid vacation time for
workers, cultural attitudes may prevent people from
actually using it.
46% of US workers say they don't use all of their time
off. Nearly half of those employees worry they might
fall behind on their work if they take time off, with
nearly 20% thinking it could hurt their career
growth and 16% saying they fear losing their job.
And more than 40% of workers say they feel badly
about their colleagues taking on their workload if
they were to take time off.
I think in the US there's this idea that you have to
basically fight for your job.
Even if you've been in that job for like five, ten
years, you're constantly fighting for your place,
you're constantly fighting for your right to stay
there.
Some Americans also can't afford to take a trip,
especially amid rising costs across the board due
to inflation. 56% of US adults said they didn't
think they could afford to take vacation last year
because of inflation.
1 in 3 decided to scale back their vacation instead
of skipping it altogether, and the average respondent's
budget was around $1,200.
More than 35% of the American workforce are
freelancers, which means if they take vacation, it's on
their dime. Freelancers struggle with work-life
balance, with 92% saying they feel pressure to work
on vacation. The flexibility of picking their
own hours and remote work may counteract the low
vacation time. More than half of freelancers that get
their work from Fiverr say they travel while working.
Taking vacation is generally good for the economy.
In 2022, there were 2 million trips taken,
spending almost $840 billion.
That really equates to a significant economic
contribution to communities across the country.
It also supports 7 million American jobs.
Pre-pandemic, the US travel industry employed just as
many people as the US auto industry, and that's very
significant when you look at that comparison and you
think about how that economic impact really does
affect communities across the country.
Vacation is good for us in many ways, and one of those
is health, both physical health and mental health.
Taking vacation time is linked to a lower risk of
heart disease as well as increased productivity.
It can also promote better mental health and has shown
a reduction in stress, depression and anxiety.
We've found a fairly significant link between
people taking time off and people taking advantage of
their mental health resources.
Vacation days can help companies manage their
operations better. Paid time off for fun gives
employees the opportunity to plan ahead and encourages
them not to call out sick at the last minute when they
want to take time off.
One study found that 11% of workers said they were
planning to miss work the day after the Super Bowl,
with nearly half of those workers saying they were
either going to call in sick the day of or just not
show up and not give their job any warning.
Vacation can also help workers be more productive.
Workers in countries that prioritize vacation more
than the US were more likely to work at a faster
pace and have better focus.
I think people have a stereotype of France in
their mind as this kind of lazy culture, right?
But if you look at the employment rate there for
prime age workers, so basically 25 through 54,
it's higher than in the US.
So they have more people working and they're much
more productive per hour.
Companies in the US have been experimenting with
different PTO packages to encourage employees to take
vacation. One policy proposal is unlimited paid
time off. While this may sound good in theory, it
doesn't always work out in practice.
Early adopters reported that employees took less
time off than before the policies were implemented.
Another policy is mandatory vacation time, where workers
are required to take a certain number of days off.
This ensures that employees take time to rest at least
once a year. Whether or not vacation culture will change
in the US is still uncertain.
In the July 31st New York Times 1910, there's a
headline that says, "How Much Vacation Time Does a
Man Need? President Taft Says Three Months." This is
over a century ago.
Why don't we get it?