Americans waste 658 million days of unused annual leave

The trend of working too many hours and not using allotted annual leave isn’t specific to the UK. New research by Project: Time Off shows our counterparts across the pond left 658 million days of holiday unused in 2015, 222 million of which were lost in the ether.

Project: Time Off has put that number into perspective; 658 million days equals 1.8 million years – that’s the same age as Homo erectus, meaning those unused days in America alone go back to before humans even existed. They’ve also calculated that by not using those vacation days, employees have missed out on adding more than £170 billion to the economy and creating 1.6 million jobs for the country.

One of the most negative aspects revealed by this study is that a staggering 222 million of those days could not be rolled over, paid out, or exchanged for other benefits, meaning they were simply lost. Worse still is that while employees feel they can get ahead or win favour with their company by sacrificing holiday time, research shows those who actually take their allotted time off are more likely to have received a pay rise or bonus than those who don’t.

The good news is that 95% of Americans believe annual leave is important and fewer people cited the top excuses from 2014’s survey. However, modern business culture still needs a dramatic change if employees are to feel comfortable with taking advantage of the time they’ve earned.

Need help switching off while you’re on holiday? Follow these top tips.