55 Percent Of US Workers Left 658 Million Unused Vacation Days In 2015: Third Of Unused Vacation Days Could Not Be Rolled Over Or Paid Out

From The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics, "More Than Half of U.S. Workers Are Leaving Some Vacation Days Unused: New study says many workers feel too integral to get away, or may worry about returning to piles of work" by Melanie Trottman:

More than half of U.S. workers left some vacation time unused in 2015, ... according to a new study.***The study found that workers used 16.2 vacation days on average last year, compared with the long-term average of 20.3 days from 1976 to 2000. More than half of workers surveyed as part of the research — 55% — left days unused last year, up from prior years, Ms. Denis said, though figures aren’t exactly comparable because the methodology changed.***In total, Americans left 658 million vacation days unused last year. Of those, 222 million were forfeited because they couldn’t be rolled over or paid out in any way. That means an average of two full days were forfeited per worker.

"Americans are effectively volunteering hundreds of millions of days of free work," forfeiting $61.4 billion in benefits, the study said.