Is endless vacation a scam?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Unlimited paid time off may sound like a nice perk, but it's not always what it appears. Employers aren't typically obligated to pay out unused vacation balances when a worker leaves, and it can be hard for workers to understand just how much time they can actually take off.

And yet ... endless leave?? It doesn't sound so bad.

Today on the show, is unlimited paid time off really a benefit? We try to figure out whether it works.

Related episodes:
Vacation, and why the U.S. takes so little of it (Apple / Spotify)
The 28-Hour Work Week

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR. Well and Wong I have a shocking statistic for you. If you're a typical American
0:16.9	worker this year you will take a total of 10 days paid leave.
0:21.6	Oh my gosh in America it's like you just work at work until you
0:25.1	keel over. No vacation. Yeah just just two weeks it's not that much
0:31.1	internationally but get this you'll also leave one-third of your vacation
0:35.8	allowance unused.
0:37.9	That's according to the survey by a financial tech company, Sorbet.
0:41.7	So we're not even using all of the very meager vacation days we're
0:46.0	given.
0:47.0	Something is deeply wrong with American society. I'm sorry to get editorial but
0:52.0	why are you leaving vacation unused? I don't know.
0:55.0	I've never understood it either. Although I'm like, do I have unused vacation?
1:00.0	You know what? I'm leaving.
1:02.0	Yeah, see you in the fall. But you know some companies have
1:06.6	done away with tracking vacation time altogether. They're offering unlimited
1:11.0	paid time off.
1:12.7	Now, this isn't new.
1:14.2	Endless Leave was made famous by Netflix 15 years ago.
1:18.1	But over the last decade, it spread from Silicon Valley
1:21.0	to more Main Street companies. from Silicon limited paid time off a great benefit, we try to figure out whether supposedly all you can
1:35.3	take a vacation actually works.
1:41.1	Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wise, the app that makes
	...

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