That’s increasingly the reality for European workers. Nearly 40 million people, or 15% of the European Union’s working population, face “holiday poverty” as they can’t afford even a week’s holiday, according to a study by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), a union representing workers in the region. 

“Too many people are no longer seeing the benefits of Europe’s powerful economy in their everyday lives,” ETUC general secretary Esther Lynch said in a statement.  

The survey looked at European Union income and living standards data for people ages 18 to 64 in 2021 and 2022, and considered their ability to afford a one-week annual vacation away from home as a gauge of how economically strained they are.

During the two years in question, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still looming large, workers in the EU struggled to afford holidays. 

Some countries were worse off than others, with Italy having the highest number of workers who couldn’t pay for holidays (over 6 million people), while Romania (36%) and Cyprus (25%) had the highest share of workers compared to their populations facing similar difficulties. 

ETUC found that between 2021 and 2022, Ireland and France saw the most significant jump in the number of people unable to afford vacations. 

“A holiday is not a luxury. Having time away with family is key for protecting the physical and mental health of workers along with providing valuable experiences for children,” Lynch said. 

To be fair, the data that ETUC considered is from a period when the world was experiencing elevated interest rates and inflation, which pushed up the cost of living. Parts of the world were still grappling with pandemic-related restrictions in 2022, although the number of Europeans traveling had started showing signs of normalizing. Still, the trend of fewer workers being able to afford vacations has been observed in Europe even before lockdowns and the recent wave of economic volatility.       

The number of people unable to afford vacations shot up significantly in 2010, following the financial crisis. Those figures began recovering in the years leading up to the pandemic, but the trend has since reversed.    

Europeans take their time off very seriously. They have some of the world’s most generous annual leave allowances—higher than those in the U.S. and parts of Asia. That didn’t stop German and French workers from feeling deprived of vacations compared with their peers elsewhere in the world, an Expedia report found in June.

The ETUC’s Lynch highlighted the ability of working-class families to take vacations more easily as one of the major strides of the 20th century.

Travel has become far more accessible to the average person in recent years compared with historical norms, with the rise of budget airlines and short-term rental platforms (which have had adverse impacts on locals).

“These figures show how social progress is being reversed as a result of increased economic inequality,” Lynch said. 

ETUC expects the number of people experiencing “holiday poverty” rose further in 2023 as real wages across Europe have declined while the cost-of-living crisis presses on. If history is any hint of what the future holds, those numbers will normalize with time—until the next big Black Swan event hits the world.