Who’s Using — and Abusing — PTO?

Believe it or not, more than 80% of workers like their employers’ Paid Time Off (PTO) packages. But that doesn’t stop a surprising percentage of workers from abusing it.

Thirty-seven percent of Millennials (workers in their late 20s, 30s and early 40s born between 1981-96) take PTO “without communicating it to their manager and/or employer,” according to the latest Harris Poll. Only 24% of both Generations X (1965-80) and Z (1997-2012), and 18% of Baby Boomers (1946-64), admit to ever fibbing about where they are for the day to their employers.

Companies that track worker activity via Slack or Microsoft Teams aren’t necessarily getting valid data of who’s working and who’s not: 38% of Millennials say they “move their mouse to maintain online status on [their companies’] messaging system.” The numbers are 30% for Gen Z (aka Zoomers), 29% for Gen X and 20% for Boomers.

What about scheduling a message to be sent outside of regular hours to give the impression they’re working extra hours? Roughly the same breakdown across generations: 37% Millennials, 27% Gen Z, 26% Boomers, 24% Gen X.

The overall trend of most workers regardless of age not taking advantage of PTO remains steady. Seventy-eight percent of all workers don’t “use the maximum amount of paid time off allowed by their employer. In fact, the average American worker took 15 paid days off last year, despite half being allowed more than that by their employer. The top barriers preventing workers from taking more time off are ‘pressure to always be available and responsive to demands’ (31%) and ‘heavy workload’ (30%).”

Millennial Middle Managers Top Target for Layoffs

Companies of all sizes and stripes continue to lay off workers. Folks who aren’t as loyal (or truthful) as their co-workers are at greater risk to be let go, it stands to reason.

Example: A third of layoffs in 2023 were at the middle management level and hit Millennials at a high rate. “Job cuts for middle managers have increased by more than 10% since 2018,” according to Bloomberg. “Middle managers’ confidence in companies’ outlooks is decreasing due to layoffs and burnout.”

Millennials faced the ax more than any other generation in 2022 as well. Revelio Labs and Layoffs.fyi estimate that 94% of layoffs were Millennials, according to Business Insider.