Summer is right around the corner and you know what that means, don’t you? That’s right: vacation! For families across the country, summer has always been the time to take the vacation that you waited for all year long. You weathered the winter frost, slaved at work all year and reserved your vacation days for your getaway. It seems as though this year has the most workers going on vacation since 2006, showing that the job market is a bit more stable and more workers can afford to take some time off for themselves.
For the past couple years, we have experienced some really tough times. The unemployment rate hit an all time high and a good portion of our country was either looking for jobs or dwelling on the fact that they no longer had one. How can you take vacation from a job you don’t have? Furthermore, how can you take a vacation if you’re worried about how to keep your house or how to put food on the table? Well, you don’t. That’s why we can assume the market is improving when more and more workers decide to take time off for vacation. According to statistics, around 2.7 million people were on vacation in April. Overall, the twelve month average of workers on vacation went up 4 percent. That’s the biggest jump we have seen since 2006.
Though this offers a glimpse of the improvements we’ve made over the past couple of years, it’s in no way an indicator that we are recovered. In fact, Bloomberg Businessweek states that more workers on vacation is just a little sign of growth for our market. Little it may be, it proves that more people are more comfortable with their finances as well as with their jobs. Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc., was quoted in Bloomberg saying, “For a long time they had been too concerned about losing their jobs. Taking vacations, sick days- they tended not to do those.”
With this increased comfort and optimism on the market also comes less fear of losing a job. Spark News has discussed quite often that recently more and more employers are leaving jobs they dislike because there are now more opportunities to find a better one. As a result, employers need to make sure they are taking good care of their employees and making sure they know they are valued.
The increase in vacations for Americans can only mean good things for us as a whole. With more money circulating, be it on gas, on plane tickets, on clothes for vacation etc., our economy can really start to thrive again.
Do you plan on taking a vacation this summer? Did you purposely not go on one last year or the year before in order to save money? Tell me about it in the comments or tweet me @nicole_spark.
SOURCE: Bloomberg Businessweek
IMAGE: Courtesy of Travel Smart Blog
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