Question: I'm currently working for a company in Phoenix AZ, in a position that only has a specific amount of paid time off (PTO) there are no dedicated 'sick days', just PTO.

What I'm starting to realize is that this means any time I'm too sick to come into work, I'm losing a day of a future vacation, therefore pushing out the date that I would be able to take a similar-length vacation by a month (How long it takes me to re-accrue that PTO).

Many other positions I've been in recognize the concept of taking [either paid or unpaid] time off for illnesses, or to get things done that come up (Like if you have to handle a personal matter during the day, as many businesses that you have to interact are only open during the weekdays).

However, the one I'm working in right now only has PTO.

**Is it common for companies to give just PTO time, and not provide employees separate amounts of time to take for sick leave?**

**Is this something that I should consider when evaluating how much I'm being compensated in future positions?**

It seems like something that I overlooked when accepting this offer, as I feel that it's going to have an impact on how frequently I can actually take vacations.

Answer: 
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> Is is common for companies to give just PTO time, and not provide employees separate amounts of time to take for sick leave?
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It was exceedingly rare 25 years ago but is becoming more common.

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> Is this something that I should consider when evaluating how much I'm being compensated in future positions?
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Yes, absolutely. While the intangibles should be considered, most of what's in a compensation package can be boiled down to a dollar value that should be used as a starting point for comparisons.\*

A day off, whether it's vacation, sick time or a holiday, is a day you get paid without having to do any work for the company. That day has a dollar value, nominally eight times your hourly rate. Everything has to be looked at in aggregate, because with all other things being equal, more days off means your effective pay per hour worked goes up.

In a conventional package where your hourly rate is $50, ten days of vacation plus ten holidays is worth $8,000. Five days of sick time is worth an additional $2,000, but it's a conditional benefit because it's worth nothing if you don't use any of it. You won't know its actual value until the end of the year and you can look back at how many days you used. Figuring its worth ahead of time is a gamble on the accuracy of your estimate.

The same package in PTO-only form would give you 25 days guaranteed to be worth $10,000 because none of it is conditional. The days are all yours to use. I'll refer you to Lilianthal's answer for the practical pros and cons.

Also of note is that many conventional packages will require that you burn vacation days after running out of sick time, which is effectively the same as partially-combined PTO with financial benefits for the company. When it comes time for a payout (when you leave the company or do a time-for-cash disbursement if yours does those), the *only* thing on the table is your accumulated vacation time. The company has fewer dollars in potential liabilities on its books and the two weeks of sick time you've accumulated is of zero value because you won't get paid for any of it.

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\*Side note: I once worked for a company that paid a salary and funded a separate benefits account from which the cost of almost all benefits (PTO, insurance premiums, pretax co-pay reimbursement and a few other things) were drawn. Its unusual nature forced me to develop a financial model for evaluating the offers I had on the table at the time. I still use it to this day and has led to a very specific set of questions that I ask suitors when considering offers.
In the USA, it's fairly common, and it is called a "time bank". So many people use sick time as additional PTO anyway that companies have said, what the heck, and just combined it into a pool of time off, and let people deal with it.