Editor's note: A recent nationwide survey by the Ministry of Human Resources showed that about the half number of employees polled choose not to take their entitled paid leave because of fears that it would harm their  career prospects. Are you under such pressure that you can't take the time off you're entitled to? You're welcome to leave your comments.

emucentral (Australia)

Here in Australia the basic annual leave is 20 days, if you don't use all your annual leave in the year, it carries over so you can use it the following year.

Some companies don't like it if people accrue too much annual leave, so they insist people take it each year. There is also another kind of leave called "long service leave". If you work for a company for 10 years you get 8 weeks leave granted. If you change jobs before the 10 years you forfeit the long service leave. It was introduced to encourage people to remain with the employer rather than change jobs all the time, and so saves companies on the costs of training staff.

A college student looks for employment at a job fair in Anhui province, on July 9, 2014.[Photo/IC]