average vacation time for employees
To be clear, many American companies do provide paid leave. According to CEPR, 77 percent of private sector companies offer employees at least some paid vacation, and those workers get an average of 21 paid days. Still, that leaves nearly 1 in 4 Americans without any guarantee of paid time off from work.
On average, those with paid time off in the U.S. receive only 13 days of vacation and eight paid holidays, according to the Center for Economic Policy and Research study. For most European countries, the legally mandated number of vacations day begins at 20, and the number of paid holidays can reach 13.