Over Christmas and New Year, 43 percent of US workers say they plan to take a holiday, and of that group, roughly half — or 21 percent of all workers — will completely disconnect from work. Meanwhile, 22 percent of workers will be taking a holiday but checking in with work via email or other means. These findings, from a poll of over 500 people from earlier this month claims that the majority of workers will be connected to their jobs over the holidays — either because they are not taking a vacation at all or because they will check in during their vacation days. US workers are more likely to say they plan to take holiday than they were when Gallup last asked the question, at the beginning of the millennium. The 43 percent of US employees who plan to take a break this holiday season is up from about a third of workers (34 percent) in 2000.
Even with the increase, a majority of US employees (57 percent) are not taking a break around the holidays. Still, many workers are probably getting some time off in the form of company-recognised holidays on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, for example, but the workers may not consider that vacation time per se.
Gallup has previously found that remote working is on the rise — 43 percent of American employees worked away from their team members at least some of the time in 2016, compared with 39 percent in 2012. The trend is occurring across most industries Gallup has studied.