Last year, nearly half of Americans left Paid Time Off unused, which is terrible. Everyone should have the time to themselves that they are entitled to.

We in the Garden State were no exception.

According to research done by Solitaired to determine how people in each state take advantage of their vacation days, New Jerseyans have some changes to make in how we use our time in 2025.

New Jersey workers left an average of 2.41 PTO days unused (5th lowest in the U.S.)

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Canva / TSM Illustration
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While we’re among the best in the country at using our time off, there’s still room for improvement.

In case you were wondering, the state with the most unused vacation time was Maryland. They averaged 6.36 unused PTO days.

37% of workers didn't use all their PTO (2nd lowest in the U.S.)

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Canva / TSM Illustration
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This is a shame. Some of the most common reasons workers leave their vacation time unused are saving it for an emergency, being too focused on work, or not wanting their workload to pile up in their absence.

Isn’t the point of time off to relax? But we’re stressing out about it? We need to be better about this.

This leads directly to one of the other main takeaways from the study…

39% of workers took off for mental health reasons

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Good!

When we’re stressing ourselves out this much over work (or apparently even taking time off of work, we need to take a break for our own sanity.

I don’t care how “woke” that sounds, it’s true.

People in past generations weren’t so connected to their jobs. With the lack of cell phones or smartphones, workers couldn’t be reached at any given moment by coworkers and employers with the expectation that they could immediately respond.

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We need the time to reset so we can go back to work refreshed mentally.
Be sure to use your PTO as best you can this year, New Jersey. Goodness knows that you deserve it.

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Gallery Credit: MIT Living Wage Calculator

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Gallery Credit: Rick Rickman

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kylie Moore. Any opinions expressed are Kylie's own. You can follow Kylie on Instagram.
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