Lawyer Andrea Loh, 24, who is single, only managed to take half a day of leave in 2012.

"Everything else yielded to my court calendar," laments Ms Loh, who works at a major law firm where the employees are allowed to carry over all 21 days of leave.

She adds that, as far as she knows, none of her friends or colleagues used up their leave this year.

Ms Loh is not alone. A recent ST Jobs poll of some 3,389 employees here revealed that almost eight in 10 had cleared less than three quarters of their annual leave.

According to Mr Paul Heng, managing director of Human Resources firm NeXT Career Consulting Group, Asia, the inability to finishing clearing annual leave is a "perennial issue".

-- Courtesy of The Straits Times