64% of French employees say they feel stress at work at least once a week, according to a large study that franceinfo unveils on Friday September 2, 2022. If the figure is significantly lower than the world average, which is 67% of stressed employees , and even to the European figure, 71% of employees in stress, it shows a spectacular increase compared to the pre-pandemic period, at the beginning of 2020, when this same question had been asked by ADP, specialist in human resources.
In just over two years, the proportion of French employees affected by stress has indeed increased by nine points. First of all, we complain about working days that have become too long, which undermine the now sacrosanct balance between professional and personal life. More than one in five employees, 22% exactly, point to increased responsibilities since the start of the health crisis. This is especially true in construction, in education and health as well as in leisure and hospitality. Finally, and this may seem paradoxical in a labor market where the balance of power is now in favor of employees, a good proportion of employees, 20%, say they are stressed for fear of losing their job. Media and information workers are particularly in this situation.
Remote work seems to have changed the game. This study shows that managers are less able to detect “weak signals” that betray unease or stress in those they supervise. Half of the employees are of this opinion and believe that their bosses detect workload, stress or mental health problems less than before when the activity is carried out at home rather than in the office.
Finally, certain categories of workers are more exposed to stress than others: it is overwhelmingly young people who are the most stressed. Nearly three-quarters of them say they experience stress at work at least once a week. This is 12 points more than the average employee.
Telecommuters and women are also at the high end of the work stress scale and certain sectors, such as media and information, leisure and hospitality, IT and telecommunications are particularly affected by this phenomenon. .