Majority of employees say their jobs are highly stressful: poll

Carlsbad, CA — Nearly 4 out of 5 workers from a wide range of industries say they experience elevated stress levels because of their job, results of a recent online poll show.

Participants were asked by job search website CareerCast.com to rate their job-related stress from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest). About 78% rated their stress as 7 or higher, up from 69% in the 2017 survey. Similarly, a 2017 Gallup Poll found that 79% of workers felt stressed “sometimes or frequently” during their workday, a press release from CareerCast.com states.

Meeting deadlines was the most common cause of stress cited, at 38%. Interacting with the public and growth potential were tied for a distant second at 14%.

The most stressful jobs, according to scores from 11 stress factor categories, included enlisted military personnel, firefighters, airline pilots and police officers. Among the least stressful were diagnostic medical sonographers, compliance officers, hair stylists and audiologists.

The release cautions that the poll was conducted online and is not scientific. However, “the answers do reinforce what other scientific studies deduce: The workforce is stressed.”