Workplace Stress Statistics (2026)

Half of US workers experienced a lot of stress the previous day, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026, which places the US and Canada at the top of every region for daily stress. The figure peaked at 53% in 2022 and was 46% in 2019. Asked about frequency rather than yesterday, 31% of US workers told SHRM in early 2025 that they feel stressed at work often or always, and 29% told Pew in 2023 that their job is stressful all or most of the time.

The pages that rank for this question are built on three numbers that cannot be traced: a $300 billion cost estimate from around 2001, an 83% figure from a 2013 career college survey, and a WHO figure about depression that is not about stress. This page uses Gallup's panel, Pew, SHRM, the American Psychological Association, Aflac and the peer-reviewed cost literature, gives the sample and date next to every figure, and says which of the famous numbers to stop using.

How many workers are stressed, and the trend

Three surveys ask about workplace stress with different questions, and they are more consistent than they look.

Gallup's daily stress series is the one with a trend. Among US workers it was 46% in 2019, 53% in 2022, 52% in 2023 and about 50% in the 2025 data, which Gallup now reports as a three-year rolling average. Stress rose through the pandemic and has come down a little without returning to its 2019 level. The 75% Aflac figure is a different measure, anyone reporting moderate stress or more, and it rose from 72% the year before. "Half the workforce stressed daily, a third stressed most of the time, three quarters stressed at least moderately" is the honest summary.

US against the world

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026, from 263,810 respondents in 2025, puts global daily stress among employees at 40%. The US and Canada region, at 50%, is the highest of any region, above East Asia at 46% and well above Europe, where daily stress is in the high 30s. US workers also lead on daily worry. The US is simultaneously the region with the highest engagement, at 31%, which is the paradox Gallup's report dwells on: American workers are more involved in their jobs and more stressed by them.

What causes it

SHRM's February 2025 survey of 1,193 workers asked for the main sources of workplace stress. The ranking:

• Heavy workload: 37%
• Low pay: 33%
• Understaffing: 31%
• Poor leadership: 29%
• Long hours: about 25%
• Lack of control over work: about 20%

The APA's 2025 Work in America survey, run by the Harris Poll on 2,017 workers, added a factor that has grown: 54% said job insecurity significantly affects their stress levels, and 44% were worried about layoffs in the coming year, up from 36% in 2024. Our AI in the workplace statistics page covers the share who connect that insecurity to automation. Workload and staffing are the stressors employers control; pay and insecurity are the ones they most often leave alone.

Who is most affected

Pew's 2023 survey found women more likely than men to say their job is stressful all or most of the time, 31% against 26%. Mental Health America's 2024 Mind the Workplace report, from 3,915 workers, found 71% of Gen Z respondents scoring in the unhealthy range on its workplace mental health index, the highest of any generation. Our Gen Z workplace statistics page covers that in detail.

Managers are more stressed than the people they manage. Gallup's 2026 global report found 46% of leaders and managers reporting daily stress against 39% of individual contributors, and manager engagement falling faster than any other group. By occupation, the professions with direct measures of stress against the general workforce are teachers and nurses: our teacher burnout statistics page puts teacher stress at 55% against 34% for similar adults, and our nurse burnout statistics page puts nurse burnout at 45% to 58%.

What it does to health

Mental Health America's 2024 report found 76% of workers saying workplace stress affected their sleep, up from 66% in 2019, and large shares reporting effects on diet, exercise and relationships. The peer-reviewed estimates are from Goh, Pfeffer and Zenios at Stanford and Harvard, whose 2016 paper in Management Science modeled ten workplace stressors against health outcomes and attributed about 120,000 US deaths a year and $125 billion to $190 billion in health care spending, 5% to 8% of the national total, to them. The largest contributors were lack of health insurance, job insecurity and high job demands. The paper is explicit that these are associations from observational data and a model, not measured causation, and it remains the most careful estimate available.

What it costs, and which estimates hold up

Hassard and colleagues reviewed every published cost estimate for work-related stress in 2018 and found a range from $221 million to $187 billion a year across countries and methods, with 70% to 90% of the cost in lost productivity rather than medical care. The spread reflects what each study counted, and the review's conclusion is that no single national figure is defensible without stating its method. The Goh, Pfeffer and Zenios health care figure above, $125 billion to $190 billion, is the best-documented US estimate of the medical component.

SHRM's first-quarter 2025 Civility Index modeled a narrower cost, about $2.13 billion a day in lost productivity and absenteeism from workplace incivility, from 1,587 workers surveyed in January 2025. And Gallup's $2 trillion US productivity cost is for disengagement, not stress, though the two overlap. Our employee cost calculator lets you apply absence and turnover figures to your own payroll.

What employers do about it

Gallup's 2022 finding, the latest it has published, was that 24% of US workers strongly agreed their organization cares about their overall wellbeing, down from about half at the pandemic peak. Workers who did strongly agree were 69% less likely to be job searching and 71% less likely to report burnout. On the supply side, 83% of large firms offering health benefits had at least one wellness program in 2025, per KFF, and 48% of private sector workers had access to one in March 2026, per BLS. Whether those programs reduce stress is a separate question, and the randomized trials covered on our employee wellness program statistics page found no measurable effect on health outcomes or spending. The interventions with evidence behind them are the structural ones that SHRM's stressor list points to: workload, staffing and management.

Figures to stop using

• "Workplace stress costs US businesses $300 billion a year." Traces to an American Institute of Stress estimate from around 2001 with no published method. Hassard's 2018 review could not reproduce it. Use the Goh, Pfeffer and Zenios health care estimate or state that no defensible national total exists.
• "83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress." A 2013 Everest College survey by Harris Interactive of about 1,000 workers. Thirteen years old and from a for-profit college's marketing.
• "Stress costs the global economy $1 trillion a year" or "12 billion working days." WHO's figure is for depression and anxiety, not workplace stress.
• "77% of workers experience work-related stress." APA's 2023 Work in America figure, often undated. The 2025 edition asks different questions.
• "Americans are the most stressed workers in the world." True for the US and Canada region in Gallup's daily stress measure, but the margin over East Asia is a few points and the figure is a three-year rolling average.

Key takeaways

• 50% of US and Canadian workers experienced a lot of stress the previous day in Gallup's 2025 data, the highest of any region. The figure was 46% in 2019 and 53% in 2022.
• 31% of US workers feel stressed at work often or always, per SHRM in February 2025. 29% told Pew in 2023 their job is stressful all or most of the time.
• The top causes are heavy workload at 37%, low pay at 33%, understaffing at 31% and poor leadership at 29%. 54% say job insecurity significantly affects their stress.
• Women report more frequent stress than men, 31% against 26%. Managers report more daily stress than their teams, 46% against 39%.
• 76% of workers say stress affects their sleep, up from 66% in 2019. A Stanford and Harvard model attributes about 120,000 US deaths and $125 billion to $190 billion in health spending a year to workplace stressors.
• Published cost estimates range from $221 million to $187 billion depending on method. The '$300 billion' figure has no published method.
• Only 24% of US workers strongly agree their employer cares about their wellbeing. Randomized trials of wellness programs found no effect on health or spending.
• '83% of workers are stressed' is from a 2013 for-profit college survey. WHO's $1 trillion figure is about depression and anxiety, not stress.