Over 20 percent of Mayo workers don’t use all their holidays

New research has shown that one in five people in Mayo didn’t take all their holidays last year. 

The research on annual leave, which was undertaken by FRS Recruitment, shows that Mayo’s figure is below the national average of 42 percent of people nationwide failing to use up their leave last year. 

Thirteen percent of people across the county did not take five days of annual leave or more, which in employment terms represents one week’s leave. 

26 percent didn’t take four days, 18 percent had three unused days, 16 percent with two days left, and 18 percent had just one day remaining.

The report showed that four out of five people in Mayo used their leave for foreign travel last year, and another 67 percent used it for domestic travel.

Forty percent used it for family reasons, eleven percent for personal reasons and seven percent due to illness. 

For 21 percent of Mayo workers, the longest period of annual leave they took last year was less than a week. 

In the case of 31 percent, their longest break was one week, with 41 percent taking two weeks of holidays. 

Before taking annual leave, half of Mayo employees had to give their employer two weeks’ notice. Another 42 percent were obliged to provide one month’s notice, with eight percent only having to give notice of one week.

More than one in three people said their unused leave is carried into the following year, while nearly thirty percent receive a payment in lieu. 

However, one quarter of Mayo employees said their leave is lost if it is not used. 

Out of the 1,886 people surveyed for the research, 64 percent would like their employer to introduce unlimited leave, while 70 percent in the county would be in favour of a four-day work week, even if it impacted on their salary. 

Speaking about the research, Lynne McCormack, General Manager with FRS Recruitment, said: “Holidays are a key point of negotiation between Mayo employees and their employers and are vital in maintaining work/life balance. They play a significant role in how we manage the many demands on our time outside of work. So it is useful to get a practical sense of how they are actually being used.”

Ms McCormack called the number of people not using their leave ‘surprising’.

“Even more eye-opening are the number of days leave that haven’t been used, with five days or more not being used by one in eight people in Mayo last year. Work wise, effectively that’s a week of holidays going unused for those people.

“The use of holidays and annual leave is clearly evolving, both from a policy perspective and in terms of what we do with that time. Longer term, this will have implications for how we view our days off and how they are managed by our employers too,” Ms McCormack concluded.