America on vacation

Americans spend less time away from their jobs than workers in any other Western nation. What do we have against vacations?

How much vacation do Americans take?

On average, just 10 days a year. And as companies get leaner and meaner every year, the trend is toward less time off, not more. About one in four Americans either gets no paid vacation or chooses not to take all the vacation time allotted to them. One recent study found that American workers give back 415 million days of vacation days to employers every year. Europeans and Canadians, says psychotherapist Barbara Bartlein, view this behavior with a mixture of amazement, pity, and scorn. “We are looked at as the workaholism capital of the world,” Bartlein says.

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