In the U.S., all work and not much paid play - French workers get at least 31 days off and Austrians are promised 35. But paid time off in the U.S. is not guaranteed.

In fact, 28 million Americans are no-vacation workers, receiving no paid time off, vacation or holidays. On the other hand, managers and professionals often get a good deal of vacation, says John Schmitt, a senior economist with the center and one of the authors of the report.

Then there's a large group in the middle that gets some time off, but not much -- and they can't even count on that time being all fun and games. It's the time they use to take care of business.

"For a lot of Americans who are in jobs without a lot of flexibility or discretion, vacation time serves a lot of purposes other than making summer trips to Disney World or Italy," Schmitt says. "They use their vacation time to stay home for the cable guy, or to attend a graduation or to take care of their kid who's come down with the chicken pox."

On average, full-time American workers receive 19 annual paid days off, according to the report -- 12 vacation days and seven holidays -- compared with 31 guaranteed days in France.

In May, Take Back Your Time -- a 10,000-member organization that thinks work is out of balance with the rest of life in America -- began a campaign calling for national legislation to guarantee every worker in the United States three weeks of paid vacation.

"Americans are the workaholics of the world," says John de Graaf, Take Back Your Time's national coordinator. "Having three weeks off wouldn't make people lazy. It would prevent burnout, make them better workers when they're working and give them a chance to pay attention to other aspects of their life."

Though Americans' vacation time is relatively skimpy, they don't always use it all up. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of employed adults don't take as much vacation as they have coming to them -- 35%, according to the 2007 Expedia.com Vacation Deprivation survey (analyzing vacation habits in the U.S. and four other countries); 56% according to a survey conducted this spring for Hudson, a division of the Hudson Highland Group, which specializes in professional recruitment.

Here is a by-the-numbers snapshot of the vacation scene in the U.S. and around the world gleaned from these surveys:

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Internationally