Australian workers now hold 209 million days of unused annual leave as full-time jobs decline
Australians are heading into summer with one of the largest holiday stockpiles the country has ever seen, with more than 209 million days of unused annual leave.
New figures from Roy Morgan reveal millions of workers are heading into 2024/25 with a near-record stash of paid leave accumulated during pandemic lockdowns and amplified by years of cost-of-living pressure.
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said the increase that began during the pandemic continues to increase “during the prolonged cost of living crisis” between 2023 and 2025.
But Ms Levie confirmed that the trend has now stopped.
“Increases in annual leave days have only recently stopped due to a change in employment composition,” Ms. Levine said.
The research shows the national leave pool reached a record 216 million days at the beginning of this year, then returned to 209 million in September; That number is still nine million days more than two years ago and 60 million days more than five years ago.
According to Roy Morgan, the slowdown comes as full-time jobs decline rapidly and part-time and casual jobs increase.
In its latest employment update, the company noted that full-time employment has decreased by 511,000 since October 2024, while part-time jobs have increased by 484,000.
Ms Levine said the shift in employment was changing the way Australians accumulate leave.
Nearly half of workers now have less than five weeks’ leave, while 5.2 million Australians (about 35 per cent of paid workers) have no annual leave.
The average for bank leavers is much higher than it seems at first glance.
When the “no leave” group is removed, entitled workers are each subject to approximately 20 days of vacation, effectively a four-week holiday.
Ms. Levine said the pandemic years triggered the biggest increase, with leave balances rising from 12.3 days per worker pre-Covid to 14.3 days by the end of 2022.
“The majority of this increase occurred during the pandemic years (2020-2022) when Australians were forced to stay at home,” he said.
Despite the recent recession, the extraordinary reservoir of unused holiday time still represents a huge opportunity for Australia’s tourism industry.
More than 1.5 million workers currently have more than five weeks of annual leave; This is a lucrative demographic for operators heading into peak travel season.
