BLS Releases Leave Survey Findings

The BLS has released its findings on leave use by American workers. Here are just some of the findings:

• In 2011, 90 percent of wage and salary workers had access to paid or unpaid leave at their main jobs. Twenty-one percent of wage and salary workers took paid or unpaid leave during an average week.
• Workers who took leave during an average week took an average of 15.6 hours of leave.
• Fifty-six percent of wage and salary workers were able to adjust their work schedules or location instead of taking leave or because they did not have access to leave in 2011. Seven percent of workers made such an adjustment in an average week.
• Among wage and salary workers age 25 and over, 72 percent of workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher had access to paid leave, compared with 35 percent of workers with less than a high school diploma.
• Twenty-one percent of wage and salary workers took paid or unpaid leave during an average week. Workers who took leave during an average week took an average of 15.6 hours of leave.
• Women were slightly more likely than men to take leave from their jobs during an average week–23 percent compared with 20 percent.
• In an average week, 6 percent of wage and salary workers reported their main reason for taking leave was a vacation, 5 percent took leave because they were ill or needed medical care, and 4 percent took leave mainly to
  run errands or for personal reasons.
• Of those wage and salary workers who took leave from their main jobs during an average week, 57 percent used only paid leave and 40 percent used only unpaid leave. Three percent of these workers used a combination of paid and unpaid leave.
• Fifty-six percent of wage and salary workers were able to adjust their work schedules or location of their main jobs instead of taking time off from work in 2011. This includes wage and salary workers who adjusted their work schedules or location instead of taking leave as well as those who did so because they did not have access to leave but needed time off from work.
• Among wage and salary workers age 25 and over, 61 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher were able to adjust their work schedules or location instead of taking time off from work, compared with only 38 percent of workers with less than a high school diploma.
• In an average week in 2011, 7 percent of wage and salary workers adjusted their work schedules or location of their main jobs instead of taking time off from work.
• Parents of a household child under the age of 13 were more likely to adjust their work schedules or location instead of taking time off from work in an average week than workers who were not a parent of a household child under 18–10 percent compared with 6 percent.