Many Cork employees do not use their full annual leave

A new report from FRS recruitment has revealed that 22% of employees in Cork did not make full use of their annual leave last year.

Two-thirds of Cork employees also said that they would support the introduction of a four-day work week, even if it impacted their salary, higher than the national average of 56%.

The FRS Recruitment Annual Leave Report, which provides regional breakdowns for each county in Ireland, shows that 3% of people didn’t use one day of leave last year, 9% didn’t use two days, 19% didn’t use three days and 20% didn’t use five days or more.

Cork was among the counties with the highest percentage of people taking all their annual leave, almost half of the national average of 42%, with just seven out of 26 counties having a figure of 22% or less not taking all their leave.

65% of employees in Offaly say they did not make full use of their annual leave last year, and the figure was over 50% in Meath, Westmeath, Kerry and Galway.

For 25% of Cork people, their unused leave is carried into the following year, 16% receive payment in lieu and 22% say their leave is lost if unused.

72% took leave for foreign travel last year, 56% for domestic travel, 24% for family reasons, 4% due to illness and 20% for personal reasons, 23% took sick leave, 11% took maternity/ paternity leave, 7% took care leave, 4% took leave due to bereavement and 8% took study leave.

The report also looked at the notice period required for leave in Cork and found that just 18% only have to give one week or less notice, 44% must give two weeks’ notice and 35% must give one month’s notice.

For 6% of people, their longest period of leave last year was less than a week, 42% took one week, 40% took two weeks and 12% took more than two weeks.

Speaking about the research, Lynne McCormack, General Manager with FRS Recruitment said that after salaries, holidays and annual leave entitlements are arguably one of the main points of negotiation between employees and employers.

“Yet despite their importance, an increasing number of these sought after days of leave are going unused by employees.” 

Ms McCormack continued, “A majority of people would also be interested in a four-day work week, even if it had an impact on their salaries. These findings are particularly interesting in the context of the high percentage of people who didn’t use their annual leave last year.”