There is no shortage of evidence psychosocial hazards at work – including long hours, job insecurity, and a lack of control over what we do – are breaking our bodies and our minds.

Statistics released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in November 2025 show in Great Britain “mental health conditions remain the primary driver of work-related ill health, with 964,000 workers reporting stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work in 2024/25.”

HSE says this “is in line with the upward trend in recent years”. This is some understatement. It is the highest figure on record, up 24 per cent on the previous year.

This should be no surprise. The findings of TUC’s survey of more than 2,700 union safety reps published in January 2026 revealed “79 per cent of safety reps cite stress as a major hazard – the highest figure recorded and significantly above all other hazards.”

In many countries, occupational stress is now the single greatest cause of work-related harm, linked to heart and other chronic diseases, higher rates of sickness absence, addiction and suicides.

A 2025 report from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) estimated around 10,000 deaths annually in Europe are linked to occupational stress.

ETUC calculated there are 6,190 deaths annually through coronary heart disease which are attributable to psychosocial risks at work across the 27 European Union member states and the UK.

Another 4,843 people lose their lives through suicide caused by work-related depression. It concluded psychosocial risks are a greater danger to workers than physical injuries, which killed 3,286 people in the EU in 2022.

A 2022 joint policy brief from UN agencies the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on good practice on mental health at work notes 11 per cent of depression worldwide is attributable to occupational risks, with 12 billion working days lost every year to depression and anxiety. ILO and WHO calculated this came at a cost of US$1 trillion per year in lost productivity.

“For all workers, safe and healthy working environments are not only a fundamental right, but are also more likely to improve work performance and productivity, improve staff retention and minimise tension and conflict,” the policy brief notes.

That is, however, far from the norm.

Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025, published by the Australia’s federal safety regulator in October 2025, identified a 14.7 per cent increase in serious mental health injury claims in just one year, rising from 15,300 to 17,600 claims in 2023–24. Safe Work Australia noted mental health conditions had a hit a record high of 12 per cent of all serious claims.

It added in the decade up to 2023/24, “serious claims for mental health conditions experienced the largest change of any nature of injury major group, up by 10,900 (or 161.1 per cent)”.

There is a high human and economic price to pay. Safe Work Australia reports that workers with a psychological injury are off work for an average of 35.7 weeks, almost five times longer than other serious injury claims. Compensation costs tell a similar story, with a median payout of Aus$67,400, compared to Aus$16,300 for other injuries.

The 2025 ‘Work shouldn’t hurt’ survey by the Australian national union federation ACTU found 1 in 5 workers sustained a mental health injury in the preceding year. It concluded Australian workers experienced unacceptably high levels of burnout, stress and overwork.

And Australia is ahead of the game. After a trade union campaign, it has now a preventive law in place, covering all psychosocial hazards at work, including harassment, and the conditions they cause, including suicide. But this remains the exception.

Only a third of countries worldwide have a law on psychosocial hazards at work, mostly rich nations, according to research published in 2019 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The UK remains, like most developing nations, lawless. The consequence, globally, is devastating.

Take just one of the of the psychosocial risk factors, long working hours. Estimates of the global burden of occupational disease published by the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 2021, note: “It can even result in death: one study found that in 2016, 745,000 people worldwide died as a result of working long hours alone.”

This is a small fraction of the total loss of life. Studies suggest work-related suicides alone could contribute at least 70,000 deaths each year.

Badly managed

In their joint policy brief, ILO and WHO note that while decent work “can positively influence mental health”, bad work can be really bad for you, stating “unemployment or unstable or precarious employment, discrimination in the workplace or poor working environments can all be a source of stress and pose a risk to mental health. Unemployment, job and financial insecurity and recent job loss are known risk factors for suicide attempts.”

The deleterious impact of insecure work is a repeat and long-established feature in research – with those affected having a health status closer to unemployment than employment, and studies showing insecure work can deprive people of the financial benefits of secure employment and the social benefits of regular routine, valued social status and positive social interactions. The evidence of the price paid by workers has been around for decades.

Downsizing and understaffing put huge strain on those who remain, fuelling excessive workloads and long working hours. This leads more attrition and higher absenteeism rates, worsening the workload crisis. 

In 2024, researchers from Kings College London published the findings of their review of evidence from 32 studies of the impact of precarious work in western economies. Their paper in the journal Work, Employment and Society observed that several reported worker experiences of stress, exhaustion, anxiety, depression and other emotions such as frustration, guilt and low self-esteem.

The authors concluded: “Findings indicate that – beyond offering living wages and the social protection of sick pay – improvements to precarious workers’ mental health may be generated through offering more predictability in hours,” adding “greater confidence in the regularity of hours may counter responses of overwork and presenteeism, as well as reducing stressful complexity and uncertainties around budgeting and caring.”

Old risks, new risks

Jobs are not what they used to be, and the work, services and products required today may be obsolete tomorrow, a new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) report on psychosocial risks and their prevention notes.

The fast-changing nature of work – new technologies, the climate crisis, globalisation, outsourcing and informal work, platform work, artificial intelligence and other factors, including the pandemic – “have created new psychosocial risks or exacerbated existing ones. For many, these changes resulted in loss of earnings,” the ILO/WHO policy brief notes. “Likewise, crises such as conflict profoundly disrupt where, how and whether people are able to work.”

This disruption in work has seen a shift away from ‘routine physical occupations’ toward ‘non-routine cognitive occupations’, coupled with a corresponding work intensification, which has resulted in alarming rates of exposure to psychosocial hazards along with increasing rates of work-related mental ill health, including suicide, a 2025 review of the role of unions in occupational health and safety observed. “In many countries, this has now reached epidemic proportions with psychological injury and illness.”

None of the old risks have gone away. They are however now supplemented by thoroughly modern ones, with artificial intelligence and climate change prominent in the new generation of threats.

Artificial intelligence and digitalisation: A matter of life and death for workers, a 2025 report from ITUC, cites evidence of psychosocial harms related to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision-making (ADM) in the workplace, including the technology facilitating the ‘micromanagement’ of work. ITUC warns new conditions including ‘technostress’ are now being recognised.

On climate threats to psychosocial health, a September 2023 International Labour Organisation (ILO) policy brief, Occupational safety and health in a just transition, notes: “The various impacts of climate change may not only cause physical risks but may also impact mental health.

“Potential threats or preventive measures can lead to stress, depression, burnout, and climate anxiety (worries about the effects of climate change). Excessive heat can lead to sleeping disorders, behavioural changes and a lowered ability to concentrate.

“The consequences of climate change, as visible through heat or extreme weather events or job/livelihood loss, can trigger feelings of helplessness or worry, loss of appetite or panic attacks. Damaged infrastructure or buildings can put workers in new or unfamiliar situations which may lead to a traumatic injury or mental stress.”

Collective agreement

None of this heartbreak is inevitable. In its new report, the ITUC presents international evidence that the single most ‘vital’ and effective remedy to workplace psychosocial risks “is active trade unions, collective action and high trade union density. And this is not just good for the workforce. It is good for the economy.”

The ITUC’s case is compelling. An international study published in 2024 found ‘high union density’ was the single biggest factor in securing a better psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and concluded that a union presence was ‘vital’. A good national safety policy came second.

The 45-country study, published in the journal Safety Science, notes: “Over and above the main effects of national policy approaches, trade union density made a significant contribution of 29 per cent to Enterprise PSC”. This was higher than the contribution from national policy approaches (27 per cent).

The paper adds “the study found that over and above national policy approaches trade union density was also important underscoring that collective social action that emphasises the protection and promotion of worker mental health is also effective in improving enterprise level PSC. This suggests that it is not enough to establish laws in isolation, but rather, that having support via collective action (eg. unionism) and the broader context is vital (as supported by Dollard and Neser (2013).”

The research in 2013 across 31 European countries, published in the journal Safety Science & Medicine, found those with higher union density have organisations reporting higher levels of protection from psychosocial risks, better worker health, and stronger GDP.

The authors concluded: “Results suggest worker health is good for the economy, and should be considered in national health and productivity accounting. Eroding unionism may not be good for worker health or the economy either.”

They reiterate: “A healthy workforce is good for the economy. The observation that worker self-reported health is related to GDP and life expectancy assessed at a national level underscores the importance of the work context for national health and productivity status. Two levels of labour protection, macro-level (union density), and organisational-level (PSC) were most important for worker health.”

A 2025 paper in the journal Occupational Health Science emphasises how unions succeed by giving workers ‘agency’ and ‘collective strength’.

It notes: “The right to a safe and healthy working environment will not be achieved by simply relying on employers becoming more benevolent or health and safety regulators more diligent. It is only through the respect and promotion of a rights-based approach that illness, injury, and death will ultimately be eliminated from the world of work.”

It adds: “Unions are critical in ensuring workers have agency at work and across society. Not only do they build collective strength in workplaces to combat employer power and control hazards, they foster solidarity across sectors, regions, and globally in mobilising industrial and political pressure to force social change…

“This is no more evident than in the current battle of our movement globally to advance and implement strengthened rights to mentally safe and healthy work.”

Without active and engaged unions, employers are much less likely to act, laws may not be enacted and if they are, be much less likely to deliver.

 And the health of both the workforce and the economy will be casualties.

What can a union can do?

Health and safety can only be guaranteed – on mental health or any other issue – with informed worker participation, and that requires a joined up, trade union approach.

Look at the big picture – does management talk safety but impose unachievable targets, low pay, punitive capability and sickness absence procedures, linking these to disciplinary processes – all factors that increase stress?

Listen to the members – surveys, risk mapping or body mapping, or a simple show of hands can give you the evidence unions need to recognise problems, identify solutions and negotiate improvements.

Increase your capacity – ensure where possible there are dedicated union safety reps that represent all the membership, not just the day shift, or permanent staff, ensuring temporary, seasonal, migrant workers and other vulnerable groups are not overlooked.

In reality, mental health problems are frequently the result of neglect of or an assault on dignity and respect at work.  Collective action – which is caring with muscles – is the way forward.

HAZARDS' PSYCHOSOCIAL RISKS FACTFILE

Bad jobs can break you
Your mental health can be seriously harmed by exposure to psychosocial and other common workplace hazards, new reports on psychosocial hazards from ITUC and ILO reveal.

Depression  Strong epidemiological evidence links depression to job strain and long working hours, with further associations observed for effort–reward imbalance, job insecurity, organisational injustice, and workplace harassment and bullying, says ILO.

Anxiety  High job demands, low decision latitude, low support, and job insecurity are linked to increased anxiety symptoms and clinical anxiety. Exposure to workplace bullying, harassment, and effort–reward imbalance have also been shown to contribute to anxiety and related harm.

Burnout  This is one of the most common outcomes of sustained high job demands combined with low control and poor support. Burnout often co-occurs with other stress-related disorders and is a key indicator of prolonged occupational strain. Studies suggest approaching 1-in-5 workers experience frequent ‘emotional exhaustion’. Burnout was recognised officially as an ‘occupational phenomenon’ in 2019, when it was included in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

Sleep disturbances and fatigue  High job demands, shift work and work-family conflict are strongly associated with insomnia, poor sleep quality and chronic fatigue. Sleep disruption contributes to anxiety and depression and exacerbates burnout, with insufficient recovery exacerbating mental health deterioration.

Cognitive decline. Together with possible increases in dementia risk and cognitive decline has been observed in relation to long-term exposure to high-strain or low-control work. ILO says these associations suggest that adverse psychosocial conditions may accelerate cognitive ageing through vascular and neuroendocrine processes.

Suicidal behaviour A ‘call for action’ on suicide and the workplace published in the journal Crisis in 2026 points to evidence indicating between 10 and 13 per cent of all suicides worldwide are caused or exacerbated by exposures at work – amounting to at least 70,000 suicides globally each year. Suicide ideation and suicide is associated with low job control, job strain, long working hours, job insecurity, poor social support, shift work and workplace violence and harassment, particularly sexual harassment and bullying and exposure to trauma at work, and can be exacerbated by irregular schedules, sleep disruption, and organisational cultures that stigmatise psychological distress.

Post-traumatic stress disorder  Emotional distress from harrowing workplace exposures can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This can be the result of single traumatic incidents like train drivers and other rail staff experiencing a suicide on the railway lines, emergency responders facing injuries and deaths in the course of their work, or exposure to disturbing images of abuse in content moderation and social care work. The condition can also be cause by the cumulative effect of exposures.

Moral injury Psychological, emotional, and moral distress can occur when individuals perpetrate, witness, or fail to prevent acts that conflict with their deeply held moral or ethical values, ILO notes. Moral injury can have serious mental health consequences, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal ideation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, studies of healthcare workers and public safety personnel documented significant levels of moral injury related to ethical conflicts, perceived injustice, and chronic exposure to trauma.

Psychological suffering  A French court in December 2024 ordered steel giant ArcelorMittal to pay €10,000 each to 58 former employees for psychological suffering linked to asbestos exposure at its sites in Gandrange, Florange, and Rombas. The Metz Court of Appeal determined the company failed in its duty to inform workers about asbestos risks. The court ruled the workers had experienced préjudice d'anxiété – a legal concept which refers to the psychological suffering experienced when someone fears they may develop a serious illness caused by prior exposure to a risk.

Unhealthy behaviours  Chronic work stress can lead to increased smoking, alcohol consumption, prescription or other drug use, overeating and physical inactivity. These coping behaviours are often adopted to manage tension or fatigue, but can contribute over time to obesity, hypertension and other chronic diseases. Stress-related fatigue and time pressure may also discourage preventive actions such as getting sufficient sleep, physical activity and medical check-ups. Unhealthy behaviours amplify the longer-term health consequences of adverse psychosocial environments.

Cardiovascular diseases  Conditions including coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke have a clearly established association with exposure to job strain and effort–reward imbalance. Long working hours have also been linked repeatedly to increased cardiovascular risk. WHO–ILO estimates there are over 745,000 deaths annually to long working hours (over 55 hours a week), most from cardiovascular disease. Psychosocial work factors are estimated to account for 5–11 per cent of CHD cases in working populations.

Metabolic disorders Conditions including obesity, diabetes and hypertension are strongly associated with chronic stress and irregular work schedules. ILO points to studies that indicate there is a higher risk of metabolic syndrome among workers exposed to high job strain, low control, or long working hours, with shift work further disrupting circadian and metabolic balance.

Digestive and immune function Chronic job stress is associated with gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome and dyspepsia, evidence cited by ILO suggests. It adds long-term exposure to psychosocial strain may suppress immune functioning and increase susceptibility to infections.

Cancer Evidence suggests that chronic work stress and low control, long hours, and organisational injustice may increase the risk of certain cancers, including colorectal, lung, and oesophageal cancers, perhaps also acting as co-factors with other occupational risk factors for these conditions, including carcinogens. ILO says these associations appear to operate through inflammatory, hormonal, and behavioural mechanisms, including immune dysregulation, oxidative stress, and unhealthy coping behaviours such as smoking or alcohol consumption.

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) Conditions including back, neck and shoulder pain are well-established consequences of unfavourable psychosocial conditions. High job demands, low control, poor social support and effort–reward imbalance are consistently associated with MSDs. Psychosocial pressures interact with physical load, affecting both the onset of potentially disabling conditions and their chronic effects.

Reproductive and perinatal outcomes Irregular hours, shift work and psychosocial stress are associated with menstrual disturbances, reduced fertility and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth and low birth weight. These effects appear to operate mainly through biological and circadian disruption rather than perceived stress alone, says ILO.

Workplace safety  In high-risk industries factors such as high demands, low control, bullying, job insecurity and organisational change are associated with elevated accident rates and unsafe behaviours. Workers under sustained pressure and suffering from fatigue and cognitive overload are more likely to skip safety protocols, take shortcuts or delay reporting near misses, says ILO. Workers in precarious employment are particularly at risk, with fear of reprisal or job loss deterring incident reporting, leading to systematic underestimation of workplace harm. This also impacts on recognition of risks and associated preventive action.

Neurotoxic effects  Many common workplace chemicals, like lead, mercury, organic solvents, vinyl chloride, carbon disulphide and carbamate and organophosphate pesticides affect your brain, and can dramatically affect your mood and mental wellbeing, says ITUC, leading to anxiety and depression. Several workplace exposures have been linked to entirely out of character criminal, violent and suicidal behaviour. A century ago, exposure to carbon disulphide, a common workplace chemical used in the manufacture of artificial silk – the synthetic textile viscose rayon, also known as ‘fake silk’ – rubber production, and many other products, was linked to insanity and suicides at work in exposed workers. Symptoms of solvent-induced chronic toxic encephalopathy in painters, printers and other exposed workers can include anxiety, depression and cognitive impairment (See: Solvents do your brains in, Hazards 41). Occupational exposure to the anti-cholinesterase carbamate and organophosphate pesticides has been linked to depression, anxiety, atypical aggression and suicide in exposed workers. The expression ‘mad as a hatter’ referred to the mental illness associated with mercury exposure in hat makers.

Key Sources

• Tackling psychosocial risks at work: How work stresses and strains can kill workers and how unions can save them, ITUC, April 2026. www.ituc-csi.org
• The psychosocial working environment: Global developments and pathways for action, ILO, April 2026. www.ilo.org

Selected references

• Tackling psychosocial risks at work: How work stresses and strains can kill workers and how unions can save them, ITUC, April 2026. www.ituc-csi.org
• The psychosocial working environment: Global developments and pathways for action, ILO, April 2026. www.ilo.org
• Mental health at work: Policy brief, ILO/WHO, 28 September 2022. WHO guidelines on mental health at work, WHO, 2022. WHO key facts on mental health at work, WHO, September 2024.
• Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025, Work Safe Australia, October 2025.
• Workplace stress epidemic killing 10,000 people a year, ETUC, 2025.
• Record levels of work-related stress in Britain’s workplaces, TUC, January 2026. Full findings of the TUC survey of workplace safety reps.
• 2025 ‘Work shouldn’t hurt’ survey, ACTU, November 2025.
• Frank Pega, Bálint Náfrádi, Natalie C. Momen and others. Global, regional, and national burdens of ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to exposure to long working hours for 194 countries, 2000–2016: A systematic analysis from the WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury, Environment International, volume 154, 2021. doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106595
• Waters S, Gullestrup J, LaMontagne AD, King T, Thomas SS, Genest C, Castelli Dransart DA, Shan Lai CC. Suicide and the Workplace - A Call for Action. Crisis. 2026 Jan;47(1):1-8. doi: 10.1027/0227-5910/a001040.
• Rachael E. Potter, Maureen Dollard, Loic Lerouge, Aditya Jain, Stavroula Leka, Aude Cefaliello. National Policy Index (NPI) for worker mental health and its relationship with enterprise psychosocial safety climate, Safety Science, Volume 172, 106428, April 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2024.106428
• Sarah A Burgard, Lucie Kalousova and Kristin S. Seefeldt. Perceived Job Insecurity and Health: The Michigan Recession and Recovery Study, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, volume 54, issue 9, pages 1101–1106, September 2012.
• Marianna Virtanen and others. Perceived job insecurity as a risk factor for incident coronary heart disease: systematic review and meta-analysis, British Medical Journal, volume 347, f4746, 2013, published online 8 August 2013. Response to the article from BMA OMC chair Paul Nicholson
• Devan Hawkins, Laura Punnett, Letitia Davis, David Kriebel, The Contribution of Occupation-Specific Factors to the Deaths of Despair, Massachusetts, 2005–2015, Annals of Work Exposures and Health, Volume 65, Issue 7, August 2021, Pages 819–832, https://doi.org/10.1093/annweh/wxab017
• University of Massachusetts Lowell analysis of the occupational health and safety factors behind the ‘diseases of distress’, The Pump Handle, 24 February 2017.
• Denise Vesper, Michael J. Zickar, Liam O’Brien, Rory O’Neill, Maureen F. Dollard, Kevin Flynn, Keaton A. Fletcher, Kendall Stephenson, Timo Ahr, Alexander Jost, Kaylee Somerville & Julian Barling. Occupational Health and Labor Unions, Occupational Health Science, volume 9, pages 835–864, 2025.
• Artificial intelligence and digitalisation: A matter of life and death for workers, ITUC, April 2025.
• Occupational safety and health in a just transition, ILO policy brief, 2023.
• Dollard, MF., & Neser, DY. Worker health is good for the economy: Union density and psychosocial safety climate as determinants of country differences in worker health and productivity in 31 European countries. Social Science & Medicine, volume 92, pages 114–123, 2013.
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.04.028

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DEAD END JOBS

Anxiety, depression and heart disease. Even suicide. The occupational diseases of the 21st century workplace are now outstripping the maladies caused by traditional dirty, difficult and dangerous work. Hazards editor Rory O’Neill says new evidence proves unions are the best antidote to psychosocial hazards at work and boost the economy.