79 percent of private industry workers had access to paid vacation in 2021

Labor Day is just around the corner, and the end of summer—the season that many people choose to spend their vacation time—follows soon after. In March 2021, 79 percent of private industry workers had access to paid vacation leave. Forty-three percent of workers in the leisure and hospitality industry had access to paid vacation. Ninety-five percent of private industry workers in the financial activities and manufacturing industries had access to paid vacation.

Some workers with access to vacation have a consolidated leave plan, a single amount of time off for them to use for multiple purposes, such as vacation, illness, or personal business. In March 2021, 45 percent of private industry workers with paid vacation leave had access to a consolidated leave plan, and 35 percent of these workers had access in March 2017.

Fifty-six percent of workers in management, professional and related occupations with paid vacations had access to consolidated leave plans, as did 30 percent of workers in production, transportation, and material moving occupations.

These data are from the National Compensation Survey – Benefits program. To learn more, see “Employee Benefits in the United States — March 2021” and the complete dataset (XLSX). We also have more charts on employee benefits.