Half of Office Workers "Cannot Freely Use Paid Annual Leave"

49.9% of Office Workers Face Restrictions on Paid Annual Leave Usage
42.2% Cite "Disruption to Company Operations" as Reason for Leave Denial

Nearly half of office workers want to use paid annual leave but are unable to do so freely, according to an analysis.

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According to a survey released on the 5th by the civic group Workplace Bullying 119, in a poll conducted from September 2 to 10 last year, 50.1% of 1,000 office workers responded that they could freely use paid annual leave. On the other hand, 26.3% answered that they "cannot use it freely," and 23.6% said they "do not have paid annual leave." As a result, the proportion of workers facing restrictions in using paid annual leave reached 49.9% of the total.

In particular, the response "do not have paid annual leave" was high among workplaces with fewer than 5 employees (54.0%), non-regular workers (43.8%), service workers (41.0%), and office workers earning less than 1.5 million won per month (52.7%).

Additionally, 12.8% reported having experienced rejection when applying for paid annual leave, and among them, 42.2% said the reason for rejection was "because it would cause significant disruption to company operations."