21/04/09


How Stressed Are You?


Do you feel sick when you enter your office? Are you nervous because you must meet an important deadline in the evening and you are swamped with work? Does your colleague get on your nerves? Don’t try to find, you are stressed by your job.
Shortly before Labour Day, celebrated on May 1st, STATEC published a few results from its 2007 survey on labour force focusing on occupational safety and health, in which a few additional questions on occupational stress were added.

The survey was conducted on a sample of 8,400 persons aged 15 and over on the labour market. When they were interviewed, 32% of them said not to suffer from occupational stress, whereas 21% declared to be highly stressed at work.
Luxembourgers are on average slightly more stressed by their job (22%) than foreigners (19%); Frenchmen are the most stressed. The survey also shows that people working in the transportation, communication and financial intermediation sectors as well as in the manufacturing, agriculture, trade and health sectors are more affected by stress.
On the other hand, the higher their position in the hierarchy is, the more the workers’ stress level increases: 16% of labourers experience a high stress level against 20% of administrative clerks, 22% of middle management and 27% of executives.

The main causes of occupational stress

The survey identifies the different factors of occupational stress. The workload is mentioned first by nearly half of those affected, followed by rush jobs. Difficult relations with colleagues are the main reason for occupational stress experienced by women. The physical and technical work environment as well as the socio-economic environment of the companies are further stress factors mentioned by the respondents.
Finally, Luxembourg is average in Europe with 15% to 20% of the working population that suffers from occupational depression.

Unfortunately, the current economic and social context is not conducive to an improved level of occupational stress, quite the reverse. This means that the result of the survey would probably be somewhat different today; stress might be related more to the instability and insecurity of employment.

Source: Report of STATEC


Sophie Sellier
English version: Robert Mouris



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