How common is workplace stress in 2026? The latest major datasets show that it is widespread, but the numbers measure different things: Gallup reports that 40% of employees globally experienced a lot of stress the previous day in 2025, EU-OSHA reports that 29% of surveyed European workers experienced stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work in 2025, and Great Britain’s HSE estimates that 964,000 workers suffered work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25. These figures should not be treated as interchangeable prevalence estimates because their questions, populations and methods differ.
Workplace-stress statistics are frequently quoted as if they all describe the same phenomenon. They do not. Some surveys ask about stress experienced yesterday. Others ask whether health problems were caused or worsened by work. Some count workers; others estimate working days lost. Putting the figures side by side is useful only when the definitions stay attached to the numbers.
Key workplace stress statistics
40% of employees globally experienced a lot of stress during the previous day in 2025, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026.
45% of managers in Gallup’s global data reported a lot of stress the previous day, compared with 39% of individual contributors.
50% of employees in the United States and Canada reported a lot of stress the previous day in Gallup’s 2025 data, the highest regional figure in that dataset.
29% of workers in EU-OSHA’s 2025 OSH Pulse reported stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work.
More than 40% of workers in the same EU-OSHA survey reported severe time pressure, while nearly 30% reported poor communication or cooperation.
964,000 workers in Great Britain were estimated to be suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, according to the Health and Safety Executive.
22.1 million working days were lost in Great Britain because of work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25.
12 billion working days globally are estimated by the World Health Organization to be lost each year to depression and anxiety, with an estimated productivity cost of US$1 trillion annually.
Global stress: 40% of employees reported a lot of stress the previous day
Gallup’s 2026 report is based primarily on the Gallup World Poll. For the 2025 data, Gallup reports 263,810 total respondents, including 141,444 employed respondents, collected from January through December across more than 140 countries and territories.
Globally, 40% of employees said they had experienced stress a lot during the previous day. That figure was unchanged from 2024 and below the 44% reported in 2021 and 2022, but it remained above the 38% recorded in 2019.
The wording matters. This is a measure of daily experienced stress among employees. It does not mean that 40% have a diagnosed stress-related condition, that their work caused the stress, or that they are burned out.
Managers reported more daily stress than individual contributors
Gallup’s 2025 global data show 45% of managers reporting a lot of stress during the previous day, compared with 39% of individual contributors. That is a difference of six percentage points, not a statement that managers are “6% more stressed.” The survey describes the share of respondents reporting the experience; it does not by itself establish why the difference exists.
Gallup also reports variation by work location: 41% for exclusively remote employees, 46% for hybrid employees, 46% for on-site employees in remote-capable jobs and 39% for on-site employees whose jobs are not remote-capable. These figures are descriptive. They should not be used to claim that hybrid work causes more stress.
Regional differences are large
Gallup’s 2025 results ranged from 50% reporting daily stress in the United States and Canada to 21% in post-Soviet Eurasia. Australia and New Zealand were at 49%, the Middle East and North Africa at 48%, East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa at 46%, Latin America and the Caribbean at 43%, Europe at 39%, South Asia at 30% and Southeast Asia at 25%.
These regional comparisons describe survey responses within Gallup’s standardized global study. They should not be interpreted as a simple ranking of how stressful different workplaces objectively are. Cultural response patterns, economic conditions, job markets and many other factors may differ between regions.
European workers report substantial psychosocial pressure
EU-OSHA’s OSH Pulse 2025 surveyed more than 28,000 employed workers across all EU member states plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The survey was conducted by telephone in April 2025.
EU-OSHA reported that 29% of workers experienced stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work. More than 40% reported severe time pressure, one in three said their efforts went unnoticed, and nearly 30% reported poor communication or cooperation.
These measures are useful because they connect worker-reported mental-health outcomes with working conditions, but they are still survey responses rather than clinical diagnoses or experimental evidence of causation.
Great Britain: 964,000 workers and 22.1 million days lost
The UK Health and Safety Executive provides a different kind of benchmark. Based on Labour Force Survey self-reports, HSE estimates that 964,000 workers in Great Britain suffered work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25. Of those, 409,000 were new cases.
HSE estimates that stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 22.1 million working days lost during 2024/25. Across all work-related ill health and non-fatal workplace injury, 40.1 million days were lost, meaning stress, depression or anxiety represented a substantial share of the total.
HSE also reports an average of 22.9 days off per case of work-related stress, depression or anxiety. Again, these are estimates based on self-reported Labour Force Survey data, not a count of medical diagnoses.
WHO: depression and anxiety cost an estimated 12 billion workdays each year
The World Health Organization estimates that 15% of working-age adults were living with a mental disorder in 2019. WHO also estimates that depression and anxiety lead to 12 billion working days being lost globally each year, at an annual productivity cost of about US$1 trillion.
This widely cited figure is about depression and anxiety, not a general estimate of the cost of “workplace stress.” That distinction is important. Repeating the US$1 trillion figure as the cost of workplace stress would broaden the source claim beyond what WHO actually states.
What the statistics can—and cannot—tell us
Taken together, these sources show that stress and psychosocial health are significant workplace issues across multiple geographies and measurement systems. They also show why a single headline percentage can be misleading.
Gallup measures whether employees experienced a lot of stress the previous day. EU-OSHA asks about psychosocial risks and work-related health outcomes. HSE estimates work-related illness and absence in Great Britain. WHO synthesizes global evidence on mental health, including depression and anxiety. Different questions produce different numbers.
The safest conclusion is therefore not that one percentage represents the universal “workplace stress rate.” It is that several large, authoritative datasets independently show substantial levels of stress, psychosocial risk and mental-health-related work loss.
Why this matters for management
Workplace stress is sometimes framed as an individual resilience problem. The evidence base is broader than that. WHO identifies risks including excessive workloads, low job control, job insecurity, discrimination and poor working environments. EU-OSHA similarly describes psychosocial risks as arising from work design, organization, management and social context.
That does not mean every experience of stress is caused by management, or that challenging work is inherently harmful. It means organizations should distinguish between the individual experience and the conditions that may be contributing to it. For leaders, the useful question is not only how stressed people are, but what the pattern is telling them about workload, control, communication, support and the way work is designed.
Sources and methodology notes
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026: 2025 data collected January–December; 263,810 total respondents, including 141,444 employed respondents; more than 140 countries and territories. Figures cited here concern employed respondents and self-reported daily emotions.
EU-OSHA, OSH Pulse 2025: telephone survey in April 2025 of more than 28,000 employed workers in EU member states, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
UK Health and Safety Executive: 2024/25 estimates based on the Labour Force Survey and self-reported work-related ill health and working days lost.
World Health Organization: global mental-health-at-work estimates, including 2019 prevalence and modeled annual workday/productivity losses associated with depression and anxiety.