How Many Days Off This Summer? Average Vacation for Employees Is 3.8 Days

The average number of vacation days for companies providing summer leave this year has been recorded at 3.8 days.

According to the 2026 Summer Vacation Status and Economic Outlook Survey conducted by the Korea Enterprises Federation on 674 companies with five or more employees nationwide, released today (July 12), 45.8% of companies that provide summer vacation stated that their vacation period is 3 days.

This was followed by 35.5% for 5 days or more, 10.6% for 4 days, and 8.1% for 2 days or less.

Summer vacation includes all forms of leave, whether it is a designated period set by the company or the use of annual leave.

By company size, 65.5% of companies with 300 or more employees provided 5 days or more, while 3 days (48.5%) was the most common for companies with fewer than 300 employees.

By industry, 69.7% of manufacturing companies adopted a method of concentrated vacation over a short period (about one week).

Long-term implementation (1 to 2 months) accounted for 21.8%, and a 2-week rotation system accounted for 8.5%.

In the non-manufacturing sector, long-term implementation was the most common at 64.6%, followed by short-term (25.0%) and 2-week rotation (10.4%).

For companies that chose the short-term or 2-week rotation methods, the vacation period was most frequently in early August (67.5%), followed by late July (23.8%) and mid-August (4.1%).

Of the companies providing summer vacation, 53.0% responded that they have plans to provide a vacation bonus.

This is a 1.0 percentage point decrease from last year, with a higher proportion of companies with 300 or more employees (61.0%) providing bonuses compared to those with fewer than 300 employees (52.1%).

Meanwhile, 50.2% of the responding companies forecasted that the economy in the second half of the year would be at a similar level to the first half.

37.1% expected it to worsen compared to the first half, while 12.7% expected improvement.

Compared to last year's survey, the response for worsening conditions fell by 9.7 percentage points, and the response for improvement fell by 2.9 percentage points.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.