More than one in five workers did not take annual leave in 2021

More than one in five workers did not take any annual leave last year, according to new research from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on work-life balance.

Respondents were asked about the barriers that exist at their workplace to taking leave.

The most common barrier to taking paid leave was being short staffed, but for workers with children, one in eight (13 per cent) had to keep their leave for school holidays while one in 14 (7 per cent) needed to keep it in case their children got sick.

Full-time workers in larger organisations were more likely to take annual leave than their part-time equivalents, at 92 per cent compared with 88 per cent, the research showed, while length of service also impacted on a worker’s likelihood to take annual leave.

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Part-time workers in firms with 100 people or more were almost twice as likely to encounter barriers to taking unpaid leave compared to those working full-time.

Almost 17 per cent of employees had availed of flexible hours in the 12 months prior to the research, but almost 35 per cent of workers with children used flexitime for almost all of the previous four weeks, compared with 14 per cent workers who did not have children.

More than 90 per cent of workers were aware of their entitlements to breaks at work.

However, there was less awareness of the entitlement to daily rest periods and breastfeeding/lactation breaks.

The personal and work-life balance survey was carried out in quarter three of 2021.

Statistician Maureen Delamere said the survey was conducted at a time when varying levels of Covid-19 in the community, with related restrictions, would "likely have impacted on annual leave, sick leave and other forms of leave from work."