Canadians are depriving themselves of one of the most popular summer past-times – summer vacations, a new survey finds.
The second annual vacation poll – conducted by the travel website Expedia.ca and Ipsos-Reid – found that 38 per cent of Canadian workers did not take all of their allotted vacation time within the last year.
The poll of 1,000 adults found that so-called ”vacation deprivation” has increased since last year.
”Besides indicating an imbalance between personal and professional time, this also represents approximately $8-billion being handed back to employers in unused holidays annually across the country," the survey said.
Residents of Alberta were the most guilty of keeping their noses to the grindstone, with 58 per cent not planning on taking their earned time within the last year.
Forty per cent of Ontarians did not take their allotted time within the past year, followed by 38 per cent of Manitobans and Saskatchewanians.
Workers in Quebec were found to be the least vacation-deprived – only one-third did not use all of their time off in the past year.
The survey also found that people's attitudes toward vacations were that they were generally positive for health and well-being.
For example, 93 per cent of Ontarians believe that taking all of one's vacation days "is important to managing stress."
Almost half of those polled said after they take a break they feel refreshed and ready to go back to work.
Another 34 per cent said they did not look forward to returning.
