In the 2026 NAMI/Ipsos Workplace Mental Health Survey, 53% of US full-time employees at companies with at least 100 employees said they had felt burned out because of their job in the past year. The survey included 2,153 respondents and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
No. The World Health Organization classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition. WHO defines it as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
There is no single defensible cost-per-employee figure for burnout. WHO estimates that depression and anxiety cause 12 billion lost working days and US$1 trillion in lost productivity globally each year, but those figures should not be relabeled as burnout costs. Employers should calculate local costs from absence, overtime, turnover, and productivity records.
WHO lists excessive workloads, understaffing, long or inflexible hours, and low job control among workplace mental-health risks. Gallup's burnout research also highlights unfair treatment, unmanageable workload, unclear communication, lack of manager support, and unreasonable time pressure.
Scheduling software cannot diagnose or prevent burnout on its own. Earlier schedules, accurate availability, fairer shift distribution, visible swaps, and enough recovery time can remove avoidable operational stress, but workload, staffing, manager behavior, pay, safety, and job control also matter.
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In the 2026 NAMI/Ipsos Workplace Mental Health Survey, 53% of US full-time employees at companies with at least 100 workers said they had felt burned out because of their job in the past year. Another 39% felt so overwhelmed that it became hard to work, and 26% considered quitting because of work's impact on their mental health.
This page collects the current benchmark, the three-year trend, the original source links, and the limits you need before quoting the numbers.
Quote-ready summary: In a nationally representative 2026 NAMI/Ipsos poll
of 2,153 US full-time employees at companies with at least 100 workers, 53%
said they had felt burned out because of their job in the past year. The same
survey found that 39% had felt too overwhelmed to work effectively, 35% had
seen their productivity suffer because of their mental health, and 26% had
considered quitting because of work's impact on their mental health. The
overall margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
Quick employee burnout statistics
53% felt burned out because of their job in the past year.
39% felt so overwhelmed that it was hard to do their job.
38% felt their mental health suffer because of demands at work.
35% felt their productivity suffer because of their mental health.
26% considered quitting because of work's impact on their mental health.
6% resigned or quit for the same reason.
52%, 52%, 53% is the reported burnout trend across the 2024, 2025, and 2026 NAMI/Ipsos polls.
48% worried they would be judged for sharing possible mental-health struggles with colleagues.
41% worried that discussing mental-health concerns at work could hurt their career.
57% felt comfortable discussing mental health with their manager.
84% said direct managers or supervisors should help employees feel comfortable discussing mental health at work.
69% of managers said their company had given them proper resources to support the mental and emotional health of direct reports.
Burnout figures and workplace responses come from the 2026 NAMI/Ipsos topline and methodology. Each percentage describes a specific survey question, not a clinical diagnosis.
NAMI/Ipsos 2026
Employee burnout data explorer
Compare reported impact, the three-year burnout trend, and the manager support gap.
Source: 2026 NAMI/Ipsos Workplace Mental Health Survey. US full-time employees at companies with at least 100 workers; n=2,153; margin of sampling error ±2.3 percentage points.
What burnout means, and what it does not
The World Health Organization defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It has three dimensions:
exhaustion or energy depletion
greater mental distance, cynicism, or negativity toward the job
reduced professional efficacy
WHO classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition. It also says the term belongs specifically to the work context. Burnout should not be used as a catch-all label for every kind of stress, tiredness, depression, or anxiety.
That definition matters because surveys do not all measure the same thing. A question asking whether someone felt burned out in the past year will produce a different figure from a question asking whether burnout happens very often or always. Neither result is automatically wrong, but the figures should not be merged into one universal rate.
The 2026 NAMI/Ipsos poll is the cleanest current US benchmark because it publishes the exact question, sample, comparison years, and full methodology.
Employee experience in the past year
2024
2025
2026
Felt burned out because of the job
52%
52%
53%
Felt too overwhelmed to do the job
37%
40%
39%
Felt mental health suffer because of work demands
36%
37%
38%
Felt productivity suffer because of mental health
33%
34%
35%
Considered quitting because of work's mental-health impact
27%
25%
26%
Resigned or quit because of work's mental-health impact
5%
7%
6%
The headline burnout response was essentially flat from 2024 to 2026. Productivity impact rose from 33% to 35%, while the share considering quitting moved within a narrow 25% to 27% range.
This is not evidence that burnout suddenly exploded in 2026. It is evidence that roughly half of surveyed full-time employees at medium and large US employers reported job burnout for three consecutive years.
Why the numbers vary across studies
Gallup reported in 2020 that 76% of employees experienced burnout at least sometimes, while 28% felt burned out very often or always. NAMI/Ipsos asks whether respondents experienced burnout at any point in the past year. Those are different question formats and different study populations, so the percentages should not be treated as one trend line.
The safer way to cite burnout data is to include:
the exact wording or timeframe
the population surveyed
the year of data collection
the source and sample size
a note that self-reported burnout is not a diagnosis
Gallup's historical research remains useful for causes. Its five strongest correlates were unfair treatment, unmanageable workload, unclear manager communication, lack of manager support, and unreasonable time pressure.
Burnout, stress, depression, and anxiety are not interchangeable
WHO estimates that depression and anxiety cause 12 billion lost working days and US$1 trillion in lost productivity globally each year. Those figures show the scale of workplace mental health, but they are not burnout statistics and should not be presented as a burnout cost.
For the same reason, a universal "$X per burned-out employee" calculator is usually false precision. A defensible local estimate starts with records the employer can actually observe:
absence and lost hours
replacement overtime
turnover and hiring costs
manager time spent fixing coverage
measurable service, output, or quality losses
The latest employee absence statistics provide a public lost-worktime benchmark. The overtime statistics show how repeated coverage gaps can concentrate extra hours among the same people. Neither measure diagnoses burnout, but both help quantify operational pressure without inventing a medical claim.
WHO lists excessive workloads, understaffing, long or inflexible hours, low job control, unsafe conditions, limited support, and unclear roles among workplace mental-health risks.
For shift-based teams, that turns into a practical review:
Are the same employees repeatedly carrying overtime?
Are schedules published early enough for people to plan?
Are night, weekend, and closing shifts distributed fairly?
Can employees record availability before assignments are made?
Is there a documented route for swaps and open-shift coverage?
Are short recovery windows becoming routine?
Is the team staffed for normal absences, or only perfect attendance?
The shift work statistics separate schedule quality, night-work risk, and absence evidence. The employee retention statistics cover the exit side without pretending every resignation is caused by burnout. Healthcare teams can also compare those pressures with the latest hospital and nurse turnover benchmarks, including first-year exits and vacancy rates.
Where scheduling helps, and where it does not
Scheduling software is not a wellbeing program and cannot diagnose burnout. It can remove avoidable friction.
Turnozo helps managers publish schedules to employees' phones, collect recurring and one-off availability, manage shift swaps and open shifts, track clock-ins, and review overtime in timesheets. Those tools make the schedule clearer. They do not replace adequate staffing, fair management, reasonable workloads, safe working conditions, or professional mental-health support.
Source table
Fact used on this page
Value
Original source
Scope and caveat
Employees who felt burned out because of their job
Ipsos conducted the 2026 NAMI/Ipsos Workplace Mental Health Survey from January 27 to February 2, 2026, using its probability-based KnowledgePanel. The nationally representative sample included 2,153 US adults aged 18 or older who worked full time at companies with at least 100 employees. Results were weighted using Current Population Survey benchmarks. The overall margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
This sample does not represent freelancers, part-time workers, the self-employed, or employees at companies with fewer than 100 workers. It is not a shift-worker-only study. Subgroup estimates have wider uncertainty than the overall sample.
The NAMI/Ipsos figures are self-reported experiences. The WHO definition describes burnout as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical diagnosis. Gallup, WHO, and NAMI/Ipsos use different measures, populations, and timeframes, so their percentages and economic estimates are shown separately rather than blended into one rate.
Suggested citation: Turnozo, "Employee Burnout Statistics: 53% Report It," updated August 5, 2026. Primary 2026 survey data from NAMI/Ipsos; definition and workplace mental-health context from WHO.
