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See pricingAnxiety, or being anxious, is a natural response to stress, and it affects people both psychologically and physiologically. As well as being triggered by tangible stressors, anxiety can also be brought about by an unknown future ‘threat’ of some kind.
With the definitive shift to hybrid working, a spike in redundancies and an economic recession, our work environments have begun to feel increasingly ungrounded. For anybody with an anxiety disorder, these uncertainties can manifest as debilitating symptoms, which in aggregate means a massive impact (both personal and performance-related) on your workforce.
But before you can tackle the problem head on and provide your employees with the right resources and practical working adjustments, it’s important to fully understand workplace anxiety. We’ve put together a comprehensive list of data and statistics on anxiety disorders, their impact on the workforce and business, and some recommendations on what you can do to better support your employees.
What are the types of anxiety disorders?
Although we tend to generalize ‘anxiety’ when we talk about it, there are several types of anxiety disorders with different presentations and symptoms:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) describes GAD as persistent feelings of anxiety or dread about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event, that interfere with daily life. [1]
Panic Disorder
Panic Disorder is a condition where you have recurring, unexpected panic attacks. These are not situational, they often happen for no apparent reason. [2]
Obsessive compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD is a mental health condition where a person has obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. [3]
Social Phobia
Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is a long-term and overwhelming fear of social situations. [4]
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events. [5]
Although it is no longer classified as an anxiety disorder, its symptoms include severe anxiety.
General statistics on anxiety disorders
- An estimated 359 million people worldwide had an anxiety disorder in 2021, making anxiety the most common of all mental disorders. Women are affected more than men. [6]
- An estimated 19.1% of US adults had an anxiety disorder in the past year, and 31.1% experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. [8]
- Around 1 in 3 US adults (32.3%) reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in 2023. [9]
- Anxiety starts early: 31.9% of US adolescents aged 13-18 experience an anxiety disorder, and more than 1 in 5 US adults (23.1%) live with some form of mental illness. [11,12,25]
- Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, but only about 1 in 4 people in need worldwide (27.6%) receive any treatment. [6]
Only 1 in 4 people disclose their anxiety disorder to their employer. 38% are worried their boss will think it’s an excuse to get out of work. [13]
- In 2019, anxiety disorders in the US had a rate of around 533 DALYs (disability-adjusted life years, which measure the number of years lost due to ill health, disability or early death per 100,000 people), while in the UK this figure was 424 DALYs. [14]
To put that in context, the disease burden of anxiety disorders alone are a third of the disease burden for all injuries (including violence, conflict and self-harm) which was around 1575 DALYs in 2019. [15]
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US statistics on anxiety disorders
Causes of work anxiety
- Work stress and anxiety are connected, with one compounding the other. [16]
72% of people who have daily stress and anxiety say it interferes with their lives at least moderately. [16]
- 40% of US employees experience persistent stress or excessive anxiety in their daily lives, a level of stress the APA has described as a national mental health crisis. [16,17]
- 28% of US workers with daily stress have had an anxiety or panic attack, yet only 9% have ever been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. [16]
- 57% of US employees say finances are the top cause of stress in their lives, with many teams anxious because of financial stress and rising costs. [18]
Impact of anxiety on employees
A huge consequence of anxiety is blurred work-life boundaries because of the inability to disconnect from work and intrusive thoughts.
- The 4 areas employees say stress and anxiety most often impact are [16]:
- Workplace performance (56%)
- Relationships with coworkers (51%)
- Quality of work (50%)
- Relationships with superiors (43%)
- More than three-quarters of people who say stress interferes with their work say it carries over into their personal life. [16]
- Men are more likely than women to report that work stress spills over into their personal lives (83% vs 72%). [16]
- 7 in 10 adults with work stress say it affects their personal relationships, mainly with their spouses. [16]
- 30% of people with daily stress have taken prescription medication to manage stress, nervousness, emotional problems or lack of sleep. [16]
- The most common way US workers manage high job stress is simply trying to sleep more (44%). [16]
Alarmingly, you can literally worry yourself to death. Studies show that anxiety can spike cortisol, a hormone that is secreted when someone has a fight-or-flight response. If our body experiences this in a chronic way, it can lower our immune systems, spike blood pressure, and cause other health conditions, leading to a lower lifespan. [19]
The business cost of workplace anxiety in the US
Workers who rate their mental health as fair or poor miss almost 12 days of work a year, around four times more than other workers. [20]
- Mental health-related unplanned absences cost the US economy an estimated $47.6 billion every year in lost productivity. [20]
- Globally, 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety, at a cost of $1 trillion per year in lost productivity. [10]
- 77% of US workers reported experiencing work-related stress in the last month, and 56% say stress and anxiety impact their workplace performance. [16,21]
Statistics on generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
There’s a myth that because it’s ‘generalized’, GAD isn’t really that bad, but this isn’t the case. GAD can be debilitating to live with, especially when untreated. It might also present physical symptoms like a racing heart, restlessness, and fatigue, which can be disruptive to someone’s ability to work effectively.
- GAD affects 6.8 million US adults, around 3.1% of the population, in any given year. [12,22]
- Only 43.2% of people living with GAD receive treatment, even though the condition responds well to therapy. [12,22]
- Women are twice as likely as men to be affected by GAD, and it often co-occurs with major depression. [12,24]
Statistics on obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
People often mistake intrusive thoughts for OCD. While intrusive thoughts (an umbrella term for unwelcome thoughts that crowd your brain) are unpleasant and disruptive, they’re not a condition by themselves.
On the other hand, OCD is a chronic condition. When someone struggling with OCD has intrusive thoughts, they have an urge to do verbal or physical tasks to cope with how these thoughts make them feel. Intrusive thoughts are common, but people with OCD respond to them and process them differently.
- Around 94% of people have experienced intrusive thoughts at some point, according to an international study spanning six continents. [26]
- OCD affects around 2.5 million US adults, or 1.2% of the population, and women are three times more likely to be affected than men. [12,23]
- People with OCD see 3 to 4 doctors and can spend around 9 years seeking treatment before they receive a correct diagnosis. [27]
- People with OCD lose 46 working days per year to the condition, on average. This could be because intrusive thoughts make it difficult to concentrate, or compulsive behaviors affect productivity at work. [28]
Statistics on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Popular culture leads us to believe that mostly military personnel suffer from PTSD, with the term being connected to the aftermath of war. But PTSD can be caused by any form of trauma including emotional abuse, domestic conflict, or threatening behaviors of any kind. PTSD doesn’t always develop immediately after the traumatic event, sometimes it can take months or years for symptoms to present.
- Most people will experience at least one trauma in their life, but most will not develop PTSD. About 6 in 100 people (6%) will have PTSD at some point in their lives. [29]
- About 5 in 100 US adults have PTSD in any given year. In 2020, that was around 13 million Americans. [29]
- Women are twice as likely to develop PTSD as men: about 8 in 100 women and 4 in 100 men will have it at some point in their lives. [29]
- Veterans are more likely to have PTSD than civilians, especially those who deployed to a war zone. [30]
- In the US National Comorbidity Survey, 88% of men and 79% of women with PTSD had at least one other diagnosis in their lifetime, such as depression or another anxiety disorder. [31,32]
Statistics on other anxiety disorders
- Panic disorder affects around 6 million US adults (2.7% of the population) in any given year, and women are twice as likely to be affected as men. These can have a massive impact on someone’s day-to-day work life. [12,33]
- Social anxiety disorder affects 15 million US adults (7.1%), and 36% report experiencing symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help. [12,34]
US anxiety statistics by identity
- 48% of Gen Zs and 44% of millennials feel anxious or stressed all or most of the time. These groups rank mental well-being as their first or second priority in life. Addressing the causes of anxiety in the workplace is vital for companies to retain their younger workforce. [35]
- Adults under 45 are most prone to anxiety: past-year prevalence is 22.3% for ages 18-29 and 22.7% for ages 30-44. [8]
- Prevalence declines with age, falling to 20.6% for ages 45-59 and 9% for adults aged 60 and older. [8]
- Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience an anxiety disorder (23.4% vs 14.3% in the past year). They are also more likely to struggle with more than one anxiety disorder at the same time. [6,8]
US anxiety statistics by industry
K-12 school workers report the highest burnout rate of any US industry, with 44% saying they always or very often feel burned out at work [36].
Within education the numbers are even starker [36]:
- Teachers: 52%
- Female teachers: 55%
- All other US workers: 30%
- 93% of US healthcare workers reported experiencing stress during the pandemic, and 86% reported experiencing anxiety. [37]
- Men working in construction have one of the highest suicide rates of any major US industry (around 56 per 100,000), second only to mining. [38,39]
- 57% of US workers report negative impacts of work-related stress associated with burnout [21], while 74% of employees say it is appropriate to discuss mental health concerns at work [41], and 81% say employer support for mental health will be an important consideration in future job searches. [40]
Spill therapy reduces symptoms of employee anxiety by 74% in six weeks.
US workplace anxiety statistics
Anxiety is the most common mental disorder in the U.S, affecting around 40 million adults. Around 31% of all adults will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their life. [7, 42]
- Research indicates that 75% of U.S. employees have struggled at work due to anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other recent world events. [43]
- The most common causes of stress and anxiety in the average US workplace are [44]:
- Deadlines (55%)
- Interpersonal relationships (53%)
- Staff management (50%)
- Conflict resolution (49%)
More facts on Anxiety Disorders
- Anxiety can be genetic. Research shows that certain genes, when inherited, can cause GAD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder. [45,46]
- Anxiety often exists with other mental health issues. For example, up to 70% of patients with anxiety disorders can also have symptoms of depression. [47]
- Covid raised levels of anxiety on a global scale. According to the WHO, there was a 25% increase in cases of anxiety and depression across the world during the first year of the pandemic. [48]
- While many of us develop mental health issues as adults, they can also start in childhood. The CDC says that around 7% of children between the ages of 3-17 (approximately 4.4 million) have an anxiety diagnosis. [49]
- Breaking out in sweats or difficulty breathing are textbook symptoms of anxiety. But anxiety can also alter your sense of smell, cause cold hands and feet, and memory lapses. [50,51,52]
How to support employees or colleagues with anxiety
The first step to supporting someone at work who is struggling with anxiety is to have a frank and open conversation around their needs. There’s no one-measure-fits-all approach, and each person will have different needs, so asking what suits them best will go a long way.
Once you have a clear idea about what support your employee needs, you can implement a few quick low-cost measures to help them feel more comfortable at work including:
- Offering flexible working
- Avoiding ‘mystery meetings’
- Communicate any changes to workload clearly
- Arranging personal check-ins
- Respecting boundaries
The most impactful way to support an anxious employee is to signpost them to an appropriate mental health resource. Therapy is highly effective at treating anxiety, teaching people to recognize warning signs, increase resilience through coping strategies and change their relationship with negative thoughts.
Spill's mental health detection system proactively checks in on your team's mood every week to spot early signs of stress or anxiety, and a qualified therapist will reach out automatically to anyone who's feeling low. A course of Spill therapy is shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety by 74%.
More anxiety resources
For a closer look at how to support an employee with anxiety, check out our anxiety resources for employers 👇
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