Median number of paid vacation days after 1 year of service for civilian workers

The National Compensation Survey (NCS) is an annual survey of the incidence and provisions of selected benefits provided by employers. The survey collects data from a sample of approximately 18,000 private sector and State and local government establishments. The data are presented as a percentage of employees with access to employee benefit programs and, for some benefits, as a percentage of employees who participate in them.

The survey covers paid leave benefits such as holidays and vacations, personal, jury duty, military, family (both paid and unpaid), and sick leave; short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance; medical, dental, and vision care plans; defined benefit pension and defined contribution plans. Data are also available on quality-of-life benefits such as childcare and flexible workplace, financial benefits such as health savings accounts and Section 125 cafeteria benefits, and in recent years, common benefit combinations including medical care and paid leave combined with other benefits.

Data for the National Compensation Survey-Benefits (NB) begin with March 2010. Prior benefit surveys conducted under the Employee Benefits Survey (EB) are also available. Earlier surveys covered medium and large private establishments (1979–1989), State and local governments (1987 and even years in the 1990s), and small private establishments (even years in the 1990s). Beginning in 2007, data have been collected from establishments in the full civilian economy (private industry and State and local government combined).

Tabulations are presented for various employee and employer characteristics, such as establishment size, union and nonunion status of employees, and census division. All data are annual. All percents of workers are in whole percents; average holidays are stored with one decimal place; average employee contributions to health care benefits are stored in dollars and cents; all other averages are whole numbers. Updates are available annually, after the fall release.