Hardworking Brits have 13.1m days off to take before 2011

BRITISH workers still have 13.1 million days of holiday left to take before the end of the year. Nearly half of all employees, 45 per cent, said they have unused holiday time to take this year.

One in 10 of them said they were willing to sacrifice the time owed to them, with a quarter of those with unused holidays saying they had five working days or more left.

The research for travel and leisure website lastminute.com found that the main reason workers failed to take their holiday time was the country's economic situation, with two in five saying they could not afford to go away.

More than a third of men chose not to take all of their entitlement because they wanted their boss to think they were hard-working.

In 2009, 51 per cent of the British public failed to claim their full holiday allowance.