Eight in 10 U.S. workers say they are stressed at work, according to the 2014 Work Stress Survey conducted by Nielsen on behalf of Everest College.
The telephone survey of 1,004 adults found 80 percent of respondents were stressed out by at least one thing at work, down from 83 percent in last year’s survey.
For the fourth consecutive year, pay was were the top stressor, with 13 percent of respondents citing it as the most troubling work-related issue. People with household incomes of less than $50,000 were more likely to be stressed about pay, the survey said.
In past years, women were far more likely to be say low pay was their main job stressor. This year, however, 14 percent of women choosing low pay compared with 11 percent of men, compared with 18 percent of women last year versus 10 percent of men.
Long commutes shared the top spot at 13 percent, up from 11 percent in 2012 and 9 percent in 2011.
Unreasonable workload finished third at 12 percent, followed by annoying coworkers at 10 percent, poor work-life balance at 8 percent, working in a job that is not a chosen career at 6 percent, lack of opportunity for advancement at 5 percent, the boss at 5 percent, and fear of being fired or laid off at 4 percent.
The survey was conducted to coincide with April’s Stress Awareness Month, when health care professionals across the country join forces to increase public awareness about the causes and cures for the modern stress epidemic, Everest said in a news release.
Regionally, 86 percent of survey respondents in the Northeast said something in the workplace stresses them out compared with 75 percent of those in the West. Low pay was the No. 1 reason by a high margin in the Northeast (17 percent) when compared with the West (11 percent). At the same time, annoying coworkers ranked significantly higher in the Midwest (15 percent) than in the West (8 percent) and South (7 percent).
About 18 percent of respondents said nothing was stressful about their jobs.
Everest College has campuses in Thornton and Aurora.
