Business owners taking slightly longer summer holidays

Owners of SMEs have taken slightly more time off work this summer than last year, the most recent Yrittäjägallup survey shows.

SME owners are taking longer summer holidays than last year. Twenty-eight per cent of business owners said they were taking up to a week off this summer. A year ago, 32% of business owners said they were taking no more than a week off in the summer. Twelve per cent were not taking any time off at all. Last year, 14% did not take any summer holiday at all.

“It’s good that more business owners feel they can take enough holiday. The percentage has grown considerably from last year and is now the highest it has been this decade. This is a positive development,” says Mikael Pentikäinen, CEO of Suomen Yrittäjät, the Finnish SME association.

Of respondents to the Yrittäjägallup survey, 48% said they were taking up to two weeks of summer holiday. A year ago, that share was 52%. Among business owners, 29% were taking four weeks or more of summer holiday. Last year, that figure was 26%.

The Yrittäjägallup survey was answered by 1,080 representatives of micro-enterprises and SMEs between 3 and 12 June. Of the respondents, 45% were single-person business owners.

Small employers taking little leave

The highest proportion of business owners not taking any summer holiday was in construction, where 18% were not taking any summer leave at all. The lowest proportions of business owners not taking any summer holiday were in companies employing more than 10 people and in the capital region.

The longest summer leaves were in professional services, where 45% said they were taking at least four weeks off this summer. Male business owners reported slightly longer summer holidays than their female counterparts.

Business owners have also been taking more time off over the past year: 47% of business owners have taken up to two weeks off over the past year. In April last year, that figure was 52%.

Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they had taken at least three weeks off. Last year, that figure was 45%. The group taking the least holiday was small employer entrepreneurs: 38% of business owners employing 2–4 people took a week off at most.

Increasingly, business owners feel they are taking enough holiday: 54% said they thought they were taking enough time off. The corresponding figure last year was 47%. Meanwhile, 41% said they were unable to take enough holiday.

“Business owners need their time off too”

“A less positive message is that one in five business owners takes less than a week of summer holiday. “That’s not a lot, even though there are sectors where summer is the peak season and people try to take their time off at other times of the year,” Pentikäinen says.

The groups most satisfied with the length of their holidays are professional service business owners (68%), single-person business owners (60%) and business owners over the age of 60 (63%). Small employer entrepreneurs have the most difficult situation.

“Business owners need their time off too. No one can function without rest. Taking time off is also important for developing your business, because it gives space for new thinking and can generate new ideas for improvement,” Pentikäinen says.

“For many business owners, taking time off is a pipe dream. Small employers have it particularly tough. Of course, many business owners don’t want to take long holidays, because they love what they do and they want to serve their clients.

“That said, it’s important for every business owner to have a realistic chance of taking some holiday. For that to happen, they have to be able to invoice enough, because a business owner isn’t entitled to holiday pay or holiday bonus. Instead, they have to work hard to sell to their clients outside their holidays. They also have to find holiday replacements and be able to pay them.

Read the results in more detail here.

How the survey was conducted

A total of 1,080 representatives of SMEs responded to the survey, conducted by Veriana on behalf of Suomen Yrittäjät, between 3 and 12 June 2024.
The confidence interval for the survey results is ±3.1 percentage points.

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