World’s most vacation-deprived and workaholics employees

New Delhi : No surprises here. Workers across Asia, Canada, the US and Mexico are the biggest workaholics and the most vacation-deprived employees in the world, according to the results of a new report.

The latest Expedia Vacation Deprivation report shows that little has changed since the travel website launched the report more than a dozen years ago.

As in years past, while South Koreans are entitled to 15 days of holidays a year, the average taken is eight — the least among the 28 countries surveyed.

Workers in North America don’t fare much better when it comes to striking a work-life balance: Though Americans received 15 vacation days in the past year, the average taken was 12.

That translates to 375 million paid vacations lost in 2016.

“We’ve been looking at vacation and work-life balance for more than a decade now and while many of the employed adults we survey agree that regular vacations are important for their general health and wellbeing, there are still plenty who have trouble maintaining the important balance between work and life,” said John Morrey, vice-president and general manager of Expedia.com in a statement.

The biggest reasons for not using up all their vacations? Nine percent of North American respondents said they worry taking their full allotment of holidays will be perceived negatively by their employer, while 14 percent of Americans reported feeling high levels of guilt.

At the other end of the spectrum, workers in Spain, Finland, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and France are entitled to 30 days of vacation a year and take them all.

Still, despite enjoying the biggest number of holidays, an eyebrow-raising 68 percent of respondents in Spain and the United Arab Emirates, along with nearly half (47 percent) of French workers said they felt vacation-deprived.

In fact, French respondents said in an ideal world, they’d like an additional 10 days of vacation to make it a round 40 days. The vices they’re most willing to give up in exchange for another two weeks are alcohol and social media, followed by TV and coffee.

Meanwhile, when it comes to disconnecting while on holiday, workers in Hong Kong, India, the UAE and South Korea are most likely to check their email at least once a day.