Nearly half of Americans let vacation days slip

NEW YORK, May 22 (Reuters) Almost half of American workers did not take all of their vacation days last year, even though many reported being ''burned out'' by their jobs, according to a survey conducted by Yahoo Hot Jobs.

The online recruiter said 45 per cent of the 1,800 respondents did not use all of their days off for 2006, while 39 per cent said they were too exhausted to take a ''real'' vacation.

''Despite summer's reputation for being a time of travel and leisure, many US workers are not using all their vacation time and are too tired to plan a getaway,'' the company said in a statement.

Among the top reasons cited for the lack of interest in taking time off were having too much work (36 per cent), cost (34 per cent) and wanting to save vacation time for emergencies (32 per cent).

REUTERS NY VV0853