How The Recession is Making American Workers Sick

Posted by: Lauren Young on September 22, 2009

So much for work-life balance…work-life fit…work-life integration.

Whatever you want to call it, it isn’t “working.”

The recession is taking a very scary toll on the health of U.S. workers. According to The State of Health in the American Workforce report from the Families & Work Institute released today (which I heavily Tweeted), U.S. workers aren’t taking good care of themselves.

In fact, work seems to be decimating their physical and mental health. Just 28% of employees report that their overall health is “excellent,” down from 34% just six years ago, the study shows.

Some other disturbing findings:

1 in 3 workers have experienced one or more symptoms of clinical depression.

1 in 5 employees has trouble falling asleep very often or fairly often while 31% awaken too early and have trouble falling back to sleep.

49% of U.S. workers haven’t exercised in the last 30 days.

1 in 4 smokes.

39% of employees don’t use all of their vacation time while just 24% take 5 or less days for “big” vacation.

Companies have been hyping so-called wellness programs for the past few years, and there have been some interesting results, but I’m personally getting stressed out reading FWI’s findings.

What do you think? How has the recession impacted you physically and mentally? And what can corporations do to improve our physical and mental health?

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