Sick leave statistics

The Bureau of Labor Statisticsoffers some numbers regarding sick leave available for U.S. workers.

According to www.bls.gov, in March 2015:

  • Sixty-one percent of workers in private industry had paid sick leave benefits.
  • About seven in 10 of those workers received a fixed number of sick leave days per year. Most of the rest received sick leave through a consolidated leave plan, which provides a single amount of time off for workers to use for any purpose.
  • On average, workers in private industry received seven days of sick leave per year at one year of service; eight sick days at five and 10 years of service; and nine sick days at 20 years of service.
  • Employees of companies with one to 49 workers or 50 to 99 workers received fewer paid sick days on average than employees of companies with 100 workers or more.
  • Forty-seven percent of workers in private industry who received a fixed number of paid sick days could carry over unused sick days from year to year; typically, there was a limit to the number of days these workers could carry over. Fifty-three percent of workers in private industry could not carry over unused sick days.

This Web exclusive information is a supplement to The sick leave situation.