{"id":643058,"date":"2026-05-01T16:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643058\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T16:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:18:14","slug":"workers-health-isnt-the-only-thing-at-risk-of-job-strain-the-economy-is-too-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643058\/","title":{"rendered":"Workers’ health isn’t the only thing at risk of job strain \u2014 the economy is too, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 840,000 people die each year from health conditions linked to job strain, such as long working hours, job insecurity and workplace harassment, according to a new International Labour Organization (ILO) study.<\/p>\n

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These psychosocial risks can cause depression, burnout and cancer among workers, while companies are in turn hit with lower staff retention, suffering work performance and absenteeism.<\/p>\n

While cardiovascular diseases cause most of the attributable deaths, mental disorders are most likely to cause workers to lose healthy life years, reflecting their chronic and disabling nature. <\/p>\n

This results in an estimated loss of 1.37% of global GDP and of 1.43% in Europe and Central Asia, the second-highest region worldwide.<\/p>\n

In Europe, nearly one in three workers reports job-related stress, depression or anxiety, with women reporting these problems more frequently than men. <\/p>\n

Stigma around mental health remains a major global barrier to prevention and support at work, according to the ILO report. <\/p>\n

In the EU, the annual costs of work-related depression are estimated to exceed \u20ac100 billion, with employers bearing more than 80% of the burden. <\/p>\n

More than six in 10 workers in Greece, Cyprus, France and Italy fear negative consequences if they discuss mental health with their manager, according to a 2025 survey by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.<\/p>\n

In contrast, in the Nordic countries, around eight in 10 workers feel comfortable doing so. <\/p>\n

Autonomy in the workplace<\/p>\n

Other research sheds light on how in control of their working lives Europeans feel.<\/p>\n

In Europe, half of men report having some control over their working hours, compared with 43% of women, according to a 2025 Eurofound study. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 17% of workers in the EU report a lack of autonomy or influence over work pace and processes.<\/p>\n

Europeans are also split on whether they believe technology to be a help or a hindrance in the workplace.<\/p>\n

Some 48% say that it sets the work pace, while 19% say it reduces opportunities to use their knowledge and skills, and 16% say it limits decision\u2011making, according to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.<\/p>\n

Across Europe, the share of workers reporting monotonous work tasks increased from 39% in 1995 to 48% in 2024. <\/p>\n

Sectoral results at the EU level indicate particularly high exposure in agriculture (60%), transport (56%) and commerce and hospitality (53%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 840,000 people die each year from health conditions linked to job strain, such as long working…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,29604,186741,1884],"class_list":["post-643058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-labour-force","tag-work-conditions","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}