Impending release of GTA6 causing a flood of leave requests from men aged 20 to 40

Rockstar Games is releasing Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) next week, on November 19. And the long-awaited release of the next GTA game is clearly noticeable at HR companies, which report a sharp increase in leave requests, especially from men aged 20 to 40, BNR reported after inquiring with several HR platforms.

At HR company Remote, the amount of leave booked for November 19 is nearly a third higher than it was for the same date last year. The Dutch platform operates in virtually every country worldwide. Full-time employees using the platform had booked 32 percent more leave than on November 19 last year. This is the largest increase for any single workday in 2026, excluding major holiday weeks. In the Netherlands, the leave booked for GTA 6’s release date is 20 percent higher than last year.

Young men using Dyflexis’s scheduling software submitted 289 percent more leave requests for the game’s release date. Overall, Dyflexis is seeing 7 percent more leave scheduled for November 19 than a year earlier. Dyflexis included both formal leave requests and instances where individuals marked themselves unavailable to also account for part-time and on-call workers.

Over 5,500 organizations worldwide use Dyflexis’s scheduling software, though the company’s primary focus is the Dutch market. The company noted no significant difference in leave requested by women.

According to BNR, “GTA 6” is also searched for on Google more frequently in the Netherlands than anywhere else.