From Roy Morgan Research:
New data from Roy Morgan shows over 8.1 million Australians in paid employment now have over 185 million days of annual leave due – up from 149.5 million days a year ago. There are a further 5 million workers in paid employment who have no leave.
The accrued annual leave of over 185 million days is a record high total of accrued annual leave and represents an increase of 35.5 million (+23.7%) on the 149.5 million days of accrued annual leave Australians had available in September 2020 one year ago.
On a discrete quarterly basis the increase in accrued annual leave during this year’s lockdowns caused by the outbreak of the Delta variant are even more apparent. In the March quarter 2021 Australia’s paid workers had total annual leave accrued of 174.6 million days. Since then, total annual leave accrued has increased substantially in the following two quarters to a record high of 193.7 million days in the September quarter 2021.
It should be noted that usually an annual measure of total annual leave accrued is preferred as this removes seasonal factors that mean total annual leave accrued declines in the March quarter each year as people take summer holidays and then increases during the autumn and winter months.
Now 6.7 million Australians (50.7% of paid workers) have at least 2 weeks of annual leave due, up from 5.8 million (46%) a year ago, while fewer than 1.42 million (10.7%) have less than 2 weeks due compared to over 1.76 million (14.1%) a year ago.
There have been slight increases in annual leave due tor periods greater than 2 weeks compared to a year ago. Now 1.61 million Australians (12.2% of paid workers) have 2-3 weeks of annual leave due – the most common time period of annual leave due, up from 1.33 million (10.6%).
In addition, there are now 1.39 million Australians (10.5% of paid workers) who have at least 7 weeks of annual leave due, up slightly from 1.22 million a year ago (9.7%).
A large cohort of 5.08 million Australians (38.6% of paid workers) have no annual leave due, up slightly from the 4.99 million (39.9%) without any annual leave a year ago.
