A look at consolidated leave plans in 2018

It might be a little cold to go to the beach right now, but it is never too early to plan a vacation. January 29 is National Plan for Vacation Day, so let’s look at workers with access to consolidated leave plans. A consolidated leave plan provides a single amount of time off for workers to use for vacation, illness, or personal business. Workers with no consolidated leave plan often have separate leave plans for different purposes.

Three-quarters of workers had access to paid vacations in 2018. Of those workers, 36 percent had consolidated leave plans. For those workers, the number of paid days off increased as length of service increased. The average in 2018 was 14 days at 1 year of service and 24 days at 20 years of service.

For the 64 percent of workers with paid vacations who did not have consolidated leave plans, their paid vacation days averaged 9 days at 1 year of service and 18 days at 20 years of service.

These data are from the National Compensation Survey – Benefits program. To learn more, see Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2018. Also see our holiday profiles for more information on the share of workers who receive paid time off for specific holidays.