Time is money, as the ancient Sumerian proverb goes. And at some companies, if you’ve got the money, you can buy the time. Vacation time, that is. Basically if you’ve got the cash to spare but are running low on days off, some employers will let employees buy — and others, sell — vacation days.

It sort of sounds simply like taking unpaid vacation days, but according to the Associated Press, there are companies with somewhat more complicated vacation day markets, as it were.

As a way for workers to have more flexibility in managing their time off, a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management says that 9% of employers will allow workers to cash out their unused vacation time. Some of those companies use a donation pool full of unused vacation time that can then either be simply used by other workers, or purchased.

Another report on this cash-for-time trend says employees in need of extra days let their bosses know how much they need, and if that extra time is approved, the cost of the extra days is simply deducted from the worker’s paycheck but spread out over the year.

Want more time off? Some companies allow workers to buy more days off [Associated Press]
Buying and selling vacation time new perk for some employees [KTNV.com]

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