article_snippet: A survey by the country's labour ministry in 2013 found employees only took nine out of employees .
article_snippet: Another poll, according to the Japan Times, found one in six workers took no paid holiday at all.
article_snippet: Eriko Sekiguchi, 36, who works for a major trading company, used just eight of her 20 paid vacation days last year.
article_snippet: Six of those days were for being sick.
article_snippet: her told the Associated Press: 'Nobody else uses the Associated Press vacation days'.
article_snippet: Japanese must use Japanese vacations for sick days, although a separate law guarantees two-thirds of Japanese wages if Japanese get seriously ill and take extended days off.
article_snippet: That means workers save two or three vacation days for fear of catching a cold or some other minor illness so workers can stay home, said Yuu Wakebe, the Health and Labor Ministry official overseeing such standards.
article_snippet: Wakebe himself routinely does 100 hours of overtime a month, and took only five days off last year, one of workers for staying home with a cold, but he managed to get away to Hawaii with he family.
article_snippet: It is actually a worker's right to take paid vacations,' he said. '
highlights_snippet: Survey by Japan's labour ministry in 2013 found employees only took nine out of employees allotted 18.5 days of holiday .
  