Vacation Entitlement Survey

June 29 2007 - The summer vacation season is here and a new survey shows that there has been little change in the number of vacation days offered to exempt employees since 2005. Preliminary results from the Compensation Data 2007 of 5,000 organizations show that exempt employees with 5 to 9 years service average 14.4 vacation days while non-exempt employees with the same service are entitled to 13.8 days.

Newbies in their first year receive an average of eight days, rising to 10.5 days in the second year. Employees with long-term tenure (15-19 years of service) typically receive an average of 19.5 days but a recent study by Expedia.com found that 35% of U.S. employees do not use all of their vacation entitlement, leaving an average of 3 days unused.

Amy Kaminski, manager of marketing programs for Compdata Surveys said:

"As Gen Y enters the work force, many companies are looking for new ways to recruit top talent. Offering extra vacation time in the recruiting process and allowing flexible schedules are two practices that appeal to this group."

The survey showed that 15.4% of organizations offered extra vacation time as a recruiting tactic in 2007 - up from 13.7% in 2006 - while 54.3% of companies in the survey allowed flexible schedules as a means of bolstering time off entitlements. Technical and professional employees were the people who made the most (41.2%) use of flexible schedules.

Compensation Data 2007 also states that over one half (56.4%) of responding companies permit carryover of vacation days but most (86.9%) cap the number of days that can be carried over. Maximum carryover allowed for exempt employees is 18.5 days. This compares to 17.8 for non-exempt employees.

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