Six in 10 workers took long Christmas break A poll carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that 58 per cent of people took the whole period between Friday 23 December and Tuesday 3 January off. The CIPD's findings are based on a poll of just under 900 people. However if extrapolated over the whole country, the findings suggest that just under 17.5 million people took the whole stretch as holiday. This is because there are 29.1 million workers in the UK, according to official Government figures. Fewer than a third of workers only took off the days in which their offices or places of work were closed, the CIPD found.