Almost one in four workers in Cyprus cannot afford a week's holiday, European study shows

Cyprus may be considered by many to be a holiday island, but, at close to 25% of the total, the percentage of people working in Cyprus who cannot afford a week's holiday away from home has placed the island among the 10 EU member states with the highest percentage of 'holiday poverty.'

According to the findings of research carried out by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the number of people who can’t afford a week’s holiday despite being in work has risen again by over a million in Europe in a single year.

"An analysis of the latest Eurostat microdata, which is not publicly available, by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) found a summer break was beyond the means of 41.5 million people in 2023 – up from 40.5 million in 2022," an ETUC announcement on the findings said.

It went on to note that this was the third consecutive annual rise in holiday poverty and means that 15% of all working people in Europe were now missing out on time away.

Cyprus was in the fifth place on the list with 23% of workers saying they could not afford to take a week off away from home. The only countries with higher percentages were Romania with 32%, Hungary with 26%, Bulgaria with 24% and Portugal which, like Cyprus, had 23%.

Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden had the lowest percentages of workers who said they were not able to afford a week away, all at 5%.

10 EU member states with the highest percentage of holiday poverty

According to ETUC, the estimates were obtained from the EU-SILC microdata, a cross-nationally harmonised survey instrument representative of the population.

This is used to estimate the share of the European population aged 15-64 who are working and who report they cannot afford a week’s holiday away from home.

This share is then multiplied with the number of people aged 15-64 in each European country to obtain the estimate of the number of workers who cannot afford a week’s holiday, the ETUC explained.

Click here to view ETUC's full statement on the study and its findings.