Australian workers hoard $31 billion of holiday leave

It’s official – Australians are just no good at taking holidays.

A new study of Australia’s holiday habits by the Federal Government’s Tourism Australia organisation has revealed that nearly 60% of full time workers will not use their full four weeks of leave this year and have eight weeks accrued.

Men aged between 35 and 49 have the biggest leave balances, despite the fact that half of them have children under 12 years of age.

According to Tourism Australia’s calculations, Australians have a total of 121 million days of annual leave owing, which equates to a leave bill of $31 billion for the business community.

Tourism Australia has used the research to launch its “No leave, no life” campaign to encourage workers to take leave and hopefully stimulate the struggling tourism market.