Shiftee Releases 2025 Employee Annual Leave Usage Trend Report

- Most Popular Annual Leave Days: Fridays in August and Year-End
- Summer Vacations Peaked in Mid-August Last Year

Media Coverage

• “I’m Taking a Day Off”… When Do Workers Use Annual Leave the Most?
• “No Work on Friday Nights”… Friday Tops Annual Leave Usage Among Workers

Shiftee, an integrated workforce management solution (CEO Shin Seung-won), released its analysis of employee Annual Leave (Paid Time Off, PTO) usage trends based on 2024 data. The analysis examined 3,436,885 records of annual leave usage from a random sample of companies using Shiftee to manage employee leave.

In 2024, Friday ranked as the most popular day for employees to take annual leave, accounting for 879,715 leave days taken (25.6% of total usage). In contrast, Wednesday had the lowest usage, at 488,050 days (14.2%), showing employees’ preference to extend weekends rather than take midweek leave. The single highest annual leave day of the year was a Friday in August, when 116,706 leave days were taken, reflecting the peak summer vacation period.

December recorded the highest monthly usage with 436,677 leave days (12.7%), followed by August with 357,402 days (10.4%). This indicates that annual leave usage peaks during both the year-end holidays and the summer vacation season. In contrast, January saw the lowest usage at 224,458 days (6.5%).

During the summer vacation season (June to August), a total of 895,589 annual leave days were recorded. August accounted for 39.1% of this, followed by July (33.5%) and June (27.4%), reaffirming August as the prime vacation month. Within August, the third week saw the highest usage due to Korea's Liberation Day holiday falling on a Thursday, enabling employees to create long weekends by taking midweek leave.

“Providing employees with the freedom to take sufficient rest through annual leave significantly improves both work efficiency and overall job satisfaction,” said Shin Seung-won, CEO of Shiftee. “With a workforce management solution like Shiftee, companies can easily manage annual leave requests and approvals while leveraging usage data to design tailored vacation policies and workforce planning strategies.”

Integrated Workforce Management Solution, Shiftee