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See pricingWork-related stress has become more common recently due to financial uncertainty (from an increase in the cost of living) and remote working (which has made communication and engagement at work more difficult for many people).
The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defines workplace stress as “the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker”. It’s important to note that work-related stress is more about the reaction to demands, not about the pressure itself. Some amount of stress can be a good thing, making work fulfilling (the excitement of a deadline, the challenge of figuring a new problem out).
But sustained and severe work stress that occurs over a long period of time can have a severe impact, not just on employees’ physical and mental health, but on businesses’ financial health too.
We’ve pulled together a list of the most important data and statistics on the causes of job-related stress, the impact of workplace stress, and effective ways to reduce stress at work.
Top workplace stress statistics for 2024
- 41% of employees worldwide report experiencing a lot of stress on any given day, close to record highs. [1]
- Workers in the US and Canada report some of the highest stress levels in the world: 50% experienced a lot of stress the previous day, against a global average of 41%. [1]
- Work is a major source of stress for Americans: 77% of US workers experienced work-related stress in the last month, and 57% reported negative impacts such as emotional exhaustion. [2]
- Workplace stress is linked to around 120,000 deaths in the US each year and up to $190 billion in healthcare costs, roughly 5% to 8% of national healthcare spending. [3]
- 4 in 10 US workers say their job is very or extremely stressful. [4]
Download our Stress Risk Assessment Template
Use this template to identify stress risk hazards in your workplace and build a plan to protect employees from undue stress
US workplace stress statistics
- A staggering 77% of American workers commonly experience work-related stress, having felt it in the last month alone. [2]
- More than 1 in 5 US workers (22%) say they have experienced harm to their mental health at work. [2]
- Workers who report a toxic workplace are more than three times as likely to say work has harmed their mental health than those in healthy workplaces (52% vs 15%). [2]
- 16% of US professionals have quit a job because of workplace stress. [5]
Causes of workplace stress in the US
- Low salaries are the most common cause of work-related stress in the US (56%), followed by long working hours (54%), and a lack of opportunity for growth or advancement (52%). [6]
Other causes of job related stress include:
- The boss: 35% say their manager is their biggest source of work stress [5]
- Change in leadership: 80% say it affects their stress levels [5]
- Money worries: 57% say finances are the top cause of stress in their lives [7]
- Loneliness: 1 in 5 employees feel lonely daily, rising to 25% when fully remote [1]
- Harassment: 22% experienced it at work in the past year, up from 14% in 2022 [2]
- Around 1 in 3 US customer, client or patient service workers (31%) report experiencing verbal abuse at work, compared to 22% of office workers. [2]
- 60% of full-time US employees feel stressed about their finances in relation to work, and as the cost of living goes up (and up), that figure is likely to rise. [7]
- 1 in 3 full-time US employees say money worries have negatively impacted their productivity at work. [7]
The cost of workplace stress for employers
- Workplace stress is associated with around 120,000 deaths and up to $190 billion in healthcare costs in the US every year. This is roughly 5% to 8% of all national healthcare spending. [3]
- Employees who are not engaged or who are actively disengaged cost the US economy an estimated $1.9 trillion in lost productivity in 2023. [8]
- US mental health related leaves of absence rose 300% between 2017 and 2023, including a 33% jump in 2023 alone. [9]
The cost of workplace stress for employees
- 57% of US workers report negative impacts of work-related stress, including emotional exhaustion (31%) and a lack of motivation (26%). [2]
- 50% of workers have blurred work-life boundaries, taking their work home with them. [10]
- 76% of US workers say workplace stress has had a negative impact on their personal relationships. [5]
- 66% of US professionals have lost sleep because of work stress. [5]
- 20% say work stress lowers their productivity, while 19% report irritability or anger with coworkers and customers. [2]
How US workplace stress compares globally
- The US and Canada region has the highest daily stress levels in the world, with 50% of employees experiencing a lot of stress the previous day. [1]
- Globally, low engagement (which is closely tied to stress) costs the world economy an estimated $8.8 trillion in lost productivity, around 9% of global GDP. [8]
US workplace stress statistics by industry
- 73% of US teachers report frequent job-related stress, about twice the rate of the general working population (35%), despite education being one of the most scrutinized sectors for wellbeing. [11]
Educators are not alone. Here is how stress and burnout show up across other US sectors and roles [11,12,13]:
- Health workers: 46% reported feeling burned out often or very often in 2022, up from 32% in 2018
- School principals: 85% report frequent job-related stress
- Health workers reported 4.5 days of poor mental health in the past 30 days, up from 3.3 days in 2018
- 44% of health workers intended to look for a new job in 2022, up from 33% in 2018
- Reports of harassment among health workers more than doubled between 2018 and 2022
- Teachers: 59% report burnout, compared with 44% of other working adults
- Educators: 28% experience symptoms of depression, versus 17% of non-teaching peers
- Professionals: 91% say unmanageable stress or frustration negatively impacts the quality of their work
- Manual laborers face the highest rates of physical violence at work (12%), compared to around 1 in 20 office and customer service workers (5-6%). [2]
- 22% of US workers have witnessed discrimination in their current workplace, and 15% have experienced it themselves. [2]
- More than a quarter of workers (28%) have witnessed slights, insults or jokes that devalued someone based on their identity or background. [2]
Toxic workplaces and stress in the US
- 19% of US workers say their workplace is very or somewhat toxic. [2]
- In contrast, only 15% of employees who report a healthy workplace say their mental health has been harmed at work, versus 52% in toxic workplaces. [2]
What US workers say reduces stress at work
- 92% of US workers say it is important to work for an organization that values their emotional and psychological wellbeing. [2]
Following this, here is what else matters most to US workers, according to the APA's 2023 Work in America survey [2]:
- Feeling respected at work: 95% say it is important
- Respecting boundaries between work and nonwork time: 95%
- Employer support for employee mental health: 92%
- Satisfaction with the support they currently receive: 77%
- 36% are very satisfied with their employer’s mental health support
- 59% agree their employer regularly shares information about mental health resources
- Only 22% strongly agree that this information is regularly provided
- These priorities map onto the US Surgeon General’s Five Essentials for workplace mental health
US workplace stress statistics by identity
It’s important to keep in mind that different people are affected by stress factors in varying ways:
- Women report more workplace stress than men: 54% of female workers report daily stress, compared with 45% of their male colleagues. [1]
- 69% of US mental health related leaves of absence in 2023 were taken by women, with millennial women accounting for a third (33%) and Gen X women 30%. [9]
- US men are much less likely to get mental health support: 41.6% of men with any mental illness received treatment in 2021, compared to 56.9% of women. [14]
- Among educators, wellbeing is especially poor for Hispanic and Latinx teachers, mid-career teachers, and female teachers and principals. [11]
- Nearly 1 in 5 US workers (19%) have been the target of slights, insults or jokes based on their identity or background at work. [2]
- 15% of US workers report experiencing discrimination in their current workplace, which compounds the stress of the job itself. [2]
Therapy is shown to help people cope with underlying feelings of anxiety, fear and stress in the workplace.
UK workplace stress statistics
- 79% of British employees commonly experience work-related stress. This has increased by 20% since 2018. [15]
- 914,000 UK workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2021/22. [16]
- Around 17 million working days are lost in the UK every year because of ill health caused by work stress, depression or anxiety. This is over 50% of all work-related ill health cases. [17,18]
- Less than half (40%) of UK employees who suffer from workplace stress have talked to their employer about it. [15]
- 16% of UK workers are prepared to leave companies where they feel stressed out by work. [15]
- 19% of UK workers say their employer has put no measures in place to relieve work stress. [15]
- Workplace politics are the most common cause of work-related stress in the UK (37%), followed by lack of interdepartmental communication (34%). [15]
- Almost half (48%) of the British population feel stressed at least once a week. [19]
- The rate at which UK women experience work-related stress is around 25% higher than for men. [20,21]
- 92% of people working in UK local or national government report feeling stressed at work. [15]
Effective measures to reduce workplace stress
- Counseling works: in a peer-reviewed study of 85,432 US EAP cases, employees’ hours of lost productive time fell from 57.3 to 16.4 hours per month. [22]
- The share of employees at high risk of depression fell from 60% before workplace counseling to 12% after. [22]
- Workplace mental health support can pay for itself: US EAP ROI ranges from 3:1 for small employers to 9:1 for large employers. [23]
- Support programs can break even with just one counseling case per every 100 covered employees. [23]
- Reducing stress protects retention too: replacing an employee costs around 20% of their annual salary, so every stress-driven resignation adds up. [24]
Spill’s take on stress at work
The impact of sustained work stress can be severe. Understanding and implementing methods of managing and lowering stress is vital to protect employee wellbeing and business health. Preventative measures can go a long way to building a healthy workplace culture.
To uncover your employees’ pain points, Spill recommends doing a stress at work risk assessment. It requires you to look into the specific risks of workplace stress at your company, and make a tangible plan on how to try and reduce these risks.
You can find our step-by-step guide on how to do a stress at work risk assessment (with a free example template) here.
What are some preventative measures you can take against work stress?
- Start by completing a workplace stress risk assessment. This assessment can help you identify primary causes of work stress in your company, and reasonable actions to take to mitigate it.
- Boost your managers’ emotional skill set by training them to identify causes of stress in their teams, and to signpost mental health resources when necessary.
- Provide flexible working conditions that increase employee autonomy, and cater to their life needs
Stress at work resources
Download our Stress Risk Assessment Template
Use this template to identify stress risk hazards in your workplace and build a plan to protect employees from undue stress
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