Average Summer Vacation for Employees Hits 3.8 Days

The average length of summer vacation for companies implementing such 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, 45.8 percent of companies that provide summer vacation reported that the duration is 3 days.

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

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

By company size, 65.5 percent of companies with 300 or more employees reported a vacation period of 5 days or more, while 3 days was the most common duration for companies with fewer than 300 employees at 48.5 percent.

By industry, 69.7 percent of manufacturing companies opted for a short-term concentrated vacation period of approximately one week.

Long-term implementation over one to two months accounted for 21.8 percent, while a two-week rotation system was used by 8.5 percent.

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

Among companies that chose short-term or two-week rotation systems, the most popular vacation periods were early August (67.5 percent), late July (23.8 percent), and mid-August (4.1 percent).

Fifty-three percent of companies that provide summer vacation stated they have plans to pay 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 percent) providing bonuses compared to those with fewer than 300 employees (52.1 percent).

Meanwhile, 50.2 percent of responding companies projected that the economy in the second half of the year would be similar to the first half.

Those who expected the economy to worsen compared to the first half stood at 37.1 percent, while 12.7 percent expected improvement.

Compared to last year's survey, the percentage of companies expecting the economy to worsen fell by 9.7 percentage points, and those expecting improvement dropped by 2.9 percentage points.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.