The indicator shows the average number of days of vacation entitlement per employee in a calendar year.
The vacation entitlement is not the same as the number of vacation days actually taken.
Vacation entitlement
According to the Federal Holidays Act, all employees in Germany with a 5-day week are entitled to a minimum of 20 vacation days per year. Most collective agreements, however, include entitlements to larger numbers of days.
For all employment relationships - irrespective of the company's collective bargaining agreements - figures from 2018 show, that there are differences of up to six days in the economic branch average.
In most economic branches, full-time workers were entitled to at least 28 vacation days in 2018. The highest vacation entitlement was reported by the branches, energy and water supply financial and insurance activities, public administration as well as education with an average of 30 days for full-time employees. In agriculture and forestry (24 days) and accommodation and food service activities (25 days) the average vacation entitlement was markedly smaller. However, special vacation is not covered in this analysis.
Information on the Indicator
Description or definition
Arithmetic mean of the number of annual vacation days (based on a 5 day week).
Source
Structure of Earnings Survey 2018
Information for interpretation
It is recommended to examine results only by full-time employees as the different part time models of part-time employees affects the average number of vacation days.
Basis for the calculation are employment relationships in all economic branches (NACE groups) with exception of private households and extra-territorial organizations in enterprises with at least one employee subject to social insurance contributions. Apprentices are not included.
