Key findings
- Game over for work as more than twice as many people have got 19 November booked off for Grand Theft Auto VI than will be on honeymoon
- GTA fever grips Britain, making up as much as 5% of reasons given by employees for annual leave on launch day
- Bosses face £12.4m total annual leave bill, with £3.14m worth of time off on launch day
- Nostalgia mode as GTA6 storms into the top 5 reasons for annual leave for Millennials
- One person has booked two weeks off to play GTA
Manchester, England – Grand Theft Auto fever is sweeping the nation. Workers are plotting an escape of their own. And their destination is the sofa. According to HR and absence management software provider BrightHR, annual leave bookings have gone into overdrive ahead of the midnight release of Grand Theft Auto VI on Thursday 19 November.
BrightHR crunched absence data from more than 1.2 million employees from 70,000 businesses across the UK. The bookings, and the reasons behind them, reveal just how far fans will go to get behind the wheel.
The midweek launch has triggered a rush for time off. GTA was mentioned in 4.63% of time off requests by employees on launch day, when the bill for GTA annual leave is expected to reach £3.14m.
But it's not just about one day. Throughout November and December, an estimated 83,000 days have been booked for GTA at a projected cost of £12.4m to UK employers.
GTA fans have waited long enough, and now they're making a break for it. More than twice as many people have booked launch day off as will be on their honeymoon. And one die-hard gamer has gone full throttle, saving up enough annual leave to disappear for a whole fortnight to complete the game.
BrightHR CEO Alan Price said:
"Some bosses might roll their eyes at time off to game, but they shouldn’t view it as time wasted. Taking gaming time off is every bit as valid as booking annual leave for a football match, a concert or a hen do.
"Fans have waited 13 years for this, and excitement is definitely brewing. Colourful reasons for requesting time off have included "GTA week on the sofa in my pants", "GTA Release, I'll resign if this is denied." and one very simple "GTA day. Game on, losers".
"Don't underestimate what makes your team tick. Some employees want to see the world; others want to tear around it through a console. This is honesty and trust in action: staff are unafraid to ask for what they want. As long as it doesn't leave you short staffed, there's no reason to reject holiday."
Millennials are leading the charge. They were aged 17 to 32 when the last GTA hit the shelves, and now nostalgia is biting hard: GTA accounts for 4% of all reasons they gave for booking holiday on launch day. And Gen Z has caught the bug too, with the game ranking among their top 10 reasons for time off on 19th November.
This doesn't seem to be a worldwide trend, as BrightHR clients in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand reported that GTA made up 2% of their reasons for time off on launch day. No employees in Canada referred to Grand Theft Auto in their leave requests.
While workers hit pause to vanish into Vice City, employers will be watching absence levels like the cops are watching Jason and Lucia.
Notes:
- 70,000 BrightHR clients collectively employ more than one million people across the UK
- Annual leave cost calculated at £150 per day per ONS statistics for median salary in the UK
- Employees using BrightHR software comprise 3.37% of the UK workforce; UK figures estimated proportionately
- UK workforce is 34,480,000 at July 2026 according to Government statistics
- An estimated 4.5m UK workers are off on annual leave every day