March 05, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Leisure and illness leave

In March 2008, 85 percent of workers in private industry had access to leisure leave and 83 percent had access to illness leave.

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Leisure leave is defined here as any combination of one or more of the following: paid vacation, paid holiday leave, and paid personal leave. According to the March 2008 estimates from the National Compensation Survey, 78 percent of private-industry workers were offered paid vacation leave, 77 percent were offered paid holidays, and 37 percent paid personal leave. The unduplicated total for paid vacation leave, paid holidays, and paid personal leave was 85 percent. (An unduplicated total is computed by counting each worker exactly once.)

Illness leave is defined here as any combination of one or more of the following: paid vacation, paid sick leave, paid family leave, and paid personal leave. Sixty-one percent of private-industry workers received paid sick leave in March 2008, and 8 percent received paid family leave. The unduplicated total of paid vacation, paid sick leave, paid family leave, and paid personal leave was 83 percent. Therefore, 83 percent of workers in private industry had access to illness leave.

These data are from the BLS National Compensation Survey. To learn more, see Leisure and illness leave: estimating benefits in combination (PDF), by Iris S. Díaz and Richard Wallick, Monthly Labor Review, February 2009.