Employees’ online searches for burnout signs and symptoms are up 50 per cent worldwide in 2024, according to a new study by Instant Offices.
The global study, which analyzed trends across 30 major cities, found Toronto workers had one of the highest burnout rates worldwide when looking at online sentiment, with 710 burnout term searches per month, followed by Montreal at 540.
Overall, London topped the list with the most burnout searches, followed by Melbourne, Singapore and New York. In the U.S., 57 per cent of employees reported experiencing negative impacts from work-related stress, including emotional exhaustion, lower productivity and lack of motivation.
Read: 69% of Canadian workers experiencing symptoms related to burnout: survey
Nearly half (47 per cent) of workers in Singapore felt mentally and/or physically exhausted at the end of their workday and more than two in five employees said they were finding it increasingly difficult to find motivation to do their work.
In the U.K., 91 per cent of employees said they faced “high or extreme levels” of pressure or stress over the past year and one in five needed to take time off work in the past year due to the impact of this stress on their mental health.
The top stress factors cited by U.K. workers include a high workload or increase in unpaid tasks (54 per cent), regularly working unpaid overtime (45 per cent), feeling isolated at work (42 per cent) and worries about redundancy/job security (40 per cent).
Notably, while 25 per cent of U.K. employees working in a fixed office location said working arrangements are a contributing factor to burnout, only 16 per cent of home-based workers and 14 per cent of hybrid workers said the same.
Read: 87% of employees have experienced burnout over the last year: survey