"How Many Days Off Does Your Company Give?... Only Half Receive Vacation Allowances: The Reality of Summer Leave for Korean Office Workers"

Korea Employers Federation Survey of 674 Companies
88.6% of Respondents Plan to Operate Summer Vacation This Year

The average number of days companies are granting for summer vacation this year was found to be 3.8 days. While many large companies are offering five or more days of vacation, it was most common for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grant three days of leave.

On July 12, the Korea Employers Federation announced the results of the "2026 Summer Vacation Status and Economic Outlook Survey," which targeted 674 companies nationwide with five or more employees. According to the findings, 88.6% of responding companies reported that they are operating a summer vacation program this year. Among companies implementing summer vacation, 45.8% stated that the duration would be "three days." Next was "five days or more" at 35.5%, followed by "four days" (10.6%) and "two days or less" (8.1%). The term "summer vacation" encompasses all forms in which companies designate a certain period for separate leave or annual leave.

Office workers are commuting at the Sejongno intersection in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

By company size, 65.5% of companies with 300 or more employees responded that they would grant "five days or more" for vacation, while among companies with fewer than 300 employees, "three days" (48.5%) was the most common response.

The method of managing vacation varied by industry. In manufacturing, 69.7% of companies implemented a short-term, intensive vacation period (about one week). Long-term vacations (one to two months) accounted for 21.8%, while the two-week rotation method accounted for 8.5%. In non-manufacturing industries, the long-term approach was the most common at 64.6%, followed by short-term leave (25.0%) and two-week rotation (10.4%). Among companies choosing either the short-term or two-week rotation method, the most popular vacation periods were early August (67.5%), late July (23.8%), and mid-August (4.1%).

More than half (53.0%) of companies implementing summer vacation said they plan to provide vacation allowances. This is a decrease of 1.0 percentage point from last year, and the percentage was higher among companies with 300 or more employees (61.0%) than among those with fewer than 300 employees (52.1%).

Meanwhile, regarding the economic outlook for the second half of the year, 50.2% of responding companies projected it would be "similar to the first half." A total of 37.1% expected the situation to "worsen," while 12.7% anticipated "improvement." Compared to last year's survey, the share of companies expecting conditions to worsen dropped by 9.7 percentage points, and the share expecting improvement declined by 2.9 percentage points.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.