US Employees Are Vacationing More Than They Have in Over a Decade

There's a big reason airports and resorts are booked up this summer: Americans are taking off work and vacationing more than they have in over a decade. In some cases, their employers are forcing them to. From a report: The pandemic, along with jitters about a potential recession, dampened U.S. workers' eagerness to take paid time off in recent years. Now, many vacation-bound employees say they're over such worries. More working adults took vacation days in the first half of 2023 than they did in prepandemic years, according to data from the Labor Department. Company vacation calendars show more workers are checking out, and for longer stretches, this summer. The number of employees logging vacation days climbed 11% in June compared with the same month in 2022 and 20% compared with June 2021, according to human-resources technology firm Gusto, which tracks time-off requests from workers at more than 300,000 small and midsize businesses. The amount of time they took off also rose, by 5% from last year to an average 32 hours. [...] Many executives say they are also getting away for longer breaks, even if they don't fully unplug from work. In a July survey by executive search firm Korn Ferry, 53% of the nearly 300 professionals polled said they planned to take a longer summer vacation this year than in years past. While a quarter said they never connect with work while on vacation, half said they do so once or several times a day.

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