BY KEVIN DOYLE
Just under one in five people (18%) in Waterford didn’t take all their holidays last year, according to recent research on annual leave undertaken by FRS Recruitment.
This is below the national average, with 42% of people around the country failing to use up all their leave last year.
The research shows that 14% of people in Waterford didn’t take five days of annual leave or more, 20% didn’t take four days, 23% had three days which went unused, 19% also opted against using up two days of leave and 8% had one day of their holidays remaining.
The FRS Recruitment Annual Leave Report also had a range of other findings about how people in Waterford make use of their holiday entitlements and the various employment policies in place around the use of annual leave.
Almost seven out of eight people (86%) in Waterford used annual leave for foreign travel last year and three out of five (61%) also used it for domestic travel. A further 14% used it for family reasons, 4% for personal reasons and 7% due to illness.
For one in five people (22%) in Waterford, the longest period of annual leave they took last year was less than a week. In the case of 34% their longest break was one week and 42% took two weeks of holidays. Only 2% say they took a break for longer than two weeks.
Before taking annual leave, a majority (54%) of Waterford employees say they have to give their employer two weeks’ notice. Another 29% said they must provide one month’s notice and a further 17% in Waterford only have to tell their work about their leave plans one week or less in advance.
Over two in five people (46%) in Waterford say unused annual leave is carried into the following year, while three out of 10 (31%) receive a payment in lieu. However, a quarter of Waterford employees (23%) say their leave is lost if it is not used.
When it comes to other types of leave taken, almost four in 10 people (38%) in Waterford say they took sick leave last year, 18% took care leave, another one in five (20%) took maternity/ paternity leave, 2% took study leave and 2% took leave due to a bereavement.
A majority of people in Waterford (54%) would like their employer to introduce unlimited leave, while more than two in every five employees (46%) in the county would also be in favour of a four day work week, even if it impacted on their salary.
