Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, and Gallup estimates that low engagement and poor wellbeing cost the world economy roughly $10 trillion, about 9% of global GDP (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026). The strain is widespread: APA’s Work in America survey found 57% of U.S. workers reported burnout from work-related stress, and Aflac’s latest WorkForces Report pushed moderate-to-high job stress to a six-year high of 72%. Managers are absorbing the worst of it, with manager engagement down nine points since 2022. This analysis consolidates data from Gallup, the American Psychological Association, Aflac, Deloitte, the American Medical Association, and 12 other primary sources to map how deep workplace burnout runs in 2026, who it hits hardest, what drives it, and what actually moves the needle.
This roundup covers the general workforce. For the parallel crisis among online creators and streamers, see our creator burnout statistics, which draws on a separate dataset.
TL;DR
- Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest since 2020 (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026).
- Low engagement and poor wellbeing cost the world economy about $10 trillion, or 9% of global GDP (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026).
- 57% of U.S. workers reported burnout from work-related stress; 67% had at least one burnout symptom in the past month (APA, Work in America 2024).
- U.S. workplace stress hit a six-year high, with 72% reporting moderate-to-very-high stress (Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026).
- Manager engagement dropped to 22% in 2025, down nine points since 2022 (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026).
- 82% of employees are at risk of burnout, yet fewer than half of employers have redesigned work around wellbeing (Mercer, Global Talent Trends).
- Gen Z overtook millennials as the most burned-out generation at 74% (Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026).
- Depression and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion a year in lost productivity (WHO, Mental Health at Work).
- Physician burnout fell for a third straight year to 41.9%, down from a 62.8% peak in 2021 (AMA, 2025).
- A six-country four-day-week trial cut burnout scores by 0.44 points on a five-point scale (Nature Human Behaviour, 2025).
1. The Global Engagement and Cost Picture
Engagement is the metric Gallup treats as the leading indicator of burnout risk, and it has now fallen for two consecutive years, something Gallup had never recorded before. Only about one in five employees worldwide is engaged, leaving roughly 79% either coasting or actively disengaged (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026). The $10 trillion figure is the headline for boardrooms because it is close to a tenth of global output. The WHO and turnover numbers below frame the same problem from the mental-health and quits sides.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global employee engagement (2025) | 20% (lowest since 2020) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Cost of low engagement and wellbeing to world economy | ~$10 trillion (9% of global GDP) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Global employees thriving in life (2025) | 34% (up 1 pt from 33% in 2024) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Annual cost of depression and anxiety to global economy | $1 trillion (12 billion working days lost) | WHO, Mental Health at Work |
| Working-age adults with a mental disorder at any point | 15% | WHO, Mental Health at Work |
| U.S. voluntary quits (May 2025) | 3.3 million per month | BLS, JOLTS |
Note: Gallup’s 2026 edition drew on 263,810 respondents (141,444 employed) surveyed across 2025.
2. How Widespread Burnout Is Right Now
Burnout prevalence depends heavily on how it is measured, which is why the range below runs from 57% to 82%. The signal is consistent regardless of survey: a majority of workers report burnout symptoms, and the trend is up, not down. Aflac recorded a six-year high, with 72% of U.S. employees facing moderate-to-very-high stress (Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026). Access to help lags the need: APA found only 53% of employees know how to reach mental health care through their employer, a gap that overlaps with rising demand for mental health apps.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. workers reporting burnout from work-related stress | 57% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
| Workers with at least one burnout symptom in the past month | 67% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
| U.S. employees with moderate-to-very-high stress (2025) | 72% (six-year high) | Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026 |
| Employees at risk of burnout | 82% | Mercer, Global Talent Trends |
| Desk workers experiencing burnout once a month or more | 64% | Slack, Workforce Lab |
| U.S. employees experiencing a lot of daily stress | 50% (vs 40% globally) | Gallup, U.S. Employee Engagement |
| Workers feeling tense or stressed during a typical workday | 43% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
| Workers describing their workplace as somewhat or very toxic | 15% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
Outlier: Employees with low psychological safety were ten times more likely to call their workplace toxic (30% vs 3%) (APA, Work in America 2024).
3. Manager and Leadership Burnout
The people organizations rely on to fix burnout are burning out fastest. Managers shape most of their team’s engagement, so a depleted manager tends to drag down a whole unit. Manager engagement fell to 22% globally in 2025, a nine-point slide since 2022 and the steepest drop of any employee group (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026). Leaders also report more daily stress, anger, sadness, and loneliness than individual contributors, and the burden is heaviest for senior women.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global manager engagement (2025) | 22% (down 9 pts since 2022) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Extra daily stress reported by leaders vs individual contributors | +7 points | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Leaders who say work feels chaotic and fragmented | 52% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Senior-level women who feel frequently burned out | ~60% (vs ~50% of men) | McKinsey and LeanIn, Women in the Workplace 2025 |
| Senior-level Black women frequently burned out | 77% | McKinsey and LeanIn, Women in the Workplace 2025 |
| Managers who received any formal management training | 44% | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
Context: Best-practice organizations reported 79% manager engagement in 2025, showing the gap is closable rather than structural (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026).
4. Who Gets Hit Hardest: Generations and Demographics
Burnout is not evenly distributed. Younger workers now report the highest exhaustion, and financial anxiety is a repeat driver across every cohort. Gen Z has overtaken millennials as the most burned-out generation, with 74% reporting at least moderate burnout (Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026). Deloitte’s global survey shows the pattern is not U.S.-specific: more than a third of Gen Zs feel exhausted most of the time, and money worries feed directly into how sustainable they find work.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Gen Z reporting at least moderate burnout (2025) | 74% (vs 66% of millennials) | Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026 |
| Gen Zs feeling exhausted all or most of the time | 36% | Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025 |
| Gen Zs feeling mentally distanced from their work | 35% | Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025 |
| Gen Zs saying work is a significant source of stress | 42% (vs 46% of millennials) | Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025 |
| Millennials not feeling financially secure (2025) | 46% (up from 32% in 2024) | Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025 |
| Burned-out employees citing financial strain as a factor | 43% | Mercer, Global Talent Trends |
| U.S. workers saying job insecurity significantly affects stress | 54% | APA, Work in America 2025 |
| Workers who felt lonely a lot of the prior day (remote) | 25% (vs 20% overall) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
Note: Loneliness runs higher among remote employees, a recurring theme in our remote work statistics.
5. Health Care and High-Burnout Sectors
Health care is the sector where burnout has been measured longest and most rigorously, and it offers the rare piece of good news: rates are falling from pandemic peaks even as they stay elevated. Physician burnout dropped for a third consecutive year to 41.9% in 2025, down from a 62.8% high in 2021 (AMA, Physician Burnout 2025). The workforce-wide picture is harsher than the physician-only figure, and nurses report both the highest burnout and the strongest intent to leave.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Physicians reporting at least one burnout symptom (2025) | 41.9% (down from 43.2% in 2024) | AMA, Physician Burnout 2025 |
| Physician burnout pandemic peak (2021) | 62.8% | AMA, Physician Burnout 2025 |
| Health care workers meeting burnout criteria | 49.9% | JAMA Network Open (PMC), 2025 |
| Nurses meeting burnout criteria | 56.0% (highest of any role) | JAMA Network Open (PMC), 2025 |
| Nurses with strong intent to leave within two years | 41.0% | JAMA Network Open (PMC), 2025 |
| Emergency-medicine physician burnout (2025) | 49.8% (highest specialty) | AMA, Physician Burnout 2025 |
Context: Work overload was the single strongest predictor of burnout across every health care role in the study (JAMA Network Open, 2025).
6. What Drives It: Workload and the Always-On Workday
When workers name causes, workload and fragmentation dominate over interpersonal factors. Microsoft’s telemetry across Microsoft 365 quantifies what the “infinite workday” actually looks like, and it is a day carved into two-minute fragments. Employees are interrupted every two minutes during core hours, roughly 275 times a day, by a meeting, email, or chat (Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025). Heavy workload is the top self-reported stressor in survey after survey, which is why cutting low-value meetings is one of the most-cited fixes, a theme in our meeting cost statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| People who struggle with the pace and volume of work | 68% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Workers saying they lack the time or energy to do their work | 80% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Interruptions during core work hours | Every 2 minutes (~275/day) | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Employees who say work feels chaotic and fragmented | 48% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| After-8pm meetings, year-over-year change | +16% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Heavy workloads named as the top driver of stress | 35% | Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026 |
| Company affected by recent government policy changes | 65% | APA, Work in America 2025 |
| Workers worried about job loss in an economic downturn | 44% (up from 36% in 2024) | APA, Work in America 2025 |
Outlier: Chat messages sent outside the 9-to-5 window rose 15% year over year, one of the clearest signals of the workday bleeding into personal time (Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025).
7. What Works, and the Burnout Economy
The intervention with the strongest recent evidence is reduced hours at full pay, and the market response to burnout is now a multibillion-dollar industry. A six-country trial found burnout scores fell 0.44 points on a five-point scale after a four-day week, with participating companies overwhelmingly keeping the schedule (Nature Human Behaviour, 2025). The flip side is cost: turnover linked to burnout is expensive, and employers are spending accordingly on wellness. The sibling data lives in our four-day workweek statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Burnout-score reduction after a four-day-week trial | 0.44 points on a 5-point scale | Nature Human Behaviour, 2025 |
| Job-satisfaction gain in the same trial | +0.52 points on a 10-point scale | Nature Human Behaviour, 2025 |
| Cost to replace an employee | 50%-200% of annual salary | SHRM, via Wellhub 2025 |
| Annual U.S. cost of voluntary turnover | ~$1 trillion | Wellhub, 2025 |
| Global corporate wellness market (2025) | $55.1 billion (to $70.1B by 2033) | Grand View Research, 2026 |
| Workplace stress-management market (2025) | $9.98 billion (to $17.87B by 2035) | SNS Insider, 2025 |
| Return on every $1 invested in treating depression/anxiety | $4 in health and productivity | WHO, Mental Health at Work |
| Employees who know how to access employer mental health care | 53% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
Context: Aflac found workers who feel they belong report burnout of 55% versus 78% for those who do not, underscoring that culture, not just hours, moves the number (Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026).
Summary: Workplace Burnout by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global employee engagement (2025) | 20% (lowest since 2020) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Cost of low engagement to world economy | ~$10 trillion (9% of GDP) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| U.S. workers reporting burnout from work stress | 57% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
| U.S. employees with moderate-to-very-high stress | 72% (six-year high) | Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026 |
| Employees at risk of burnout | 82% | Mercer, Global Talent Trends |
| Global manager engagement (2025) | 22% (down 9 pts since 2022) | Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 |
| Senior-level women frequently burned out | ~60% (vs ~50% of men) | McKinsey and LeanIn, Women in the Workplace 2025 |
| Gen Z reporting at least moderate burnout | 74% | Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026 |
| Gen Zs exhausted all or most of the time | 36% | Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025 |
| Physician burnout (2025) | 41.9% (from 62.8% in 2021) | AMA, 2025 |
| Health care workers meeting burnout criteria | 49.9% | JAMA Network Open (PMC), 2025 |
| Nurses meeting burnout criteria | 56.0% | JAMA Network Open (PMC), 2025 |
| People struggling with work pace and volume | 68% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Workers lacking time or energy for their work | 80% | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Core-hour interruptions | Every 2 min (~275/day) | Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 |
| Depression and anxiety cost to global economy | $1 trillion/year | WHO, Mental Health at Work |
| Four-day-week burnout reduction | 0.44 pts on 5-pt scale | Nature Human Behaviour, 2025 |
| Cost to replace an employee | 50%-200% of salary | SHRM, via Wellhub 2025 |
| Global corporate wellness market (2025) | $55.1 billion | Grand View Research, 2026 |
| Employees who know how to access mental health care | 53% | APA, Work in America 2024 |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered by aggregating figures directly from primary reports, surveys, government datasets, and peer-reviewed studies published in 2024-2026, cross-referencing prevalence and cost figures across multiple sources where estimates diverged. Every statistic above was verified against the cited source during research.
Sources cited:
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026
- Gallup, U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low (2025)
- American Psychological Association, Work in America 2025
- American Psychological Association, Work in America 2024
- Aflac, WorkForces Report 2025-2026
- Deloitte, Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2025
- American Medical Association, Physician Burnout 2025
- Microsoft, Work Trend Index 2025 (Breaking Down the Infinite Workday)
- World Health Organization, Mental Health at Work
- Nature Human Behaviour, Four-Day Workweek Trial (2025)
- JAMA Network Open, Burnout Trends Among US Health Care Workers (PMC), 2025
- McKinsey and LeanIn, Women in the Workplace 2025
- Mercer, Global Talent Trends
- Slack, Workforce Lab / Workforce Index (2025)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)
- Grand View Research, Corporate Wellness Market (2026)
- SNS Insider, Workplace Stress Management Market (2025)
- Wellhub, Cost of Employee Turnover (2025)
Data watch: Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace and U.S. engagement releases publish annually, with the next global edition expected in H1 2027. APA’s Work in America survey runs each year, Aflac’s WorkForces Report publishes each autumn, Deloitte’s Gen Z and Millennial Survey lands mid-year, the AMA updates physician burnout data annually, and Mercer’s Global Talent Trends and McKinsey and LeanIn’s Women in the Workplace both refresh annually. Expect revised burnout, engagement, and cost figures across most of these within the next 12 months.
Last updated: July 17, 2026.
We review and update this page quarterly as new data is published.