Correlation Between Vacation and Job Satisfaction?

We were struck by the statistics presented by Hudson Global Resources in the January 2005 Issue of Baseline magazine in their Out of Scope section. On the basis of Hudson's "monthly phone and online surveys of 9,000 U.S. workers (to) gauge job security and satisfaction" 39% of IT professionals were looking for new jobs in November 2004. However, the lowest positive response for the question "Are you looking for another job outside your current company?" came in August (23%). Since August is typically viewed as a "vacation month" in the U.S. as well as Europe, we began to wonder about the potentially positive effects of vacation on retention.

Would U.S. companies be smart to consider encouraging vacation during the months when worker satisfaction is at its lowest point? And would this offset other factors alluded to by the Hudson folks in linking dissatisfaction and seasonality? Kevin Knaul says "As the year winds down, people start looking at moving into new projects and new opportunities, and that's especially true in I.T." Wonder if they are also looking at what drives folks to want to stick around in August?