Employee burnout statistics you need to know (2026)

Lucas July 16, 2026 9 min read

Burnout is not a fringe problem - by 2026 most workers report at least some of its symptoms, stress is at a multi-year high, and it is the single biggest reason people plan to quit. This roundup gathers the most current employee burnout and workplace wellbeing statistics for anyone trying to understand the scale, the causes, and who it hits hardest.

A lot of burnout traces back to something mundane: too much invisible work and no clear view of who is carrying what. That is where the numbers get practical for managers, and where a shared workload view - the kind Breeze provides - can catch overload before it becomes a resignation. The statistics below show how widespread the problem has become.

Last updated: July 2026

Key employee burnout statistics (2026)

67% of US workers experienced at least one burnout symptom in the past month.
55% are currently experiencing burnout, a six-year high.
72% report moderate-to-high stress, the highest level in seven years.
74% of Gen Z workers report burnout, now higher than any other generation.
Burnout costs roughly $5 million a year for every 1,000 employees.
Burned-out workers are about 3x more likely to plan to leave within a year.
The median Breeze user has 31 open tasks assigned to them.

How common burnout is

How many workers are burned out?

67% of US workers experienced at least one burnout-associated outcome - such as low energy, isolation, or reduced effort - in the past month, and separate research puts the share currently experiencing burnout at 55%, a six-year high.

What this means: burnout is now the majority experience, not an edge case. Treating it as a personal-resilience issue misses the point when more than half the workforce is affected at once.

Sources: APA - Work in America 2024; Eagle Hill Consulting - Workforce Burnout Survey 2025

How stressed is the average worker?

72% of US workers report moderate-to-high stress, the highest level in seven years. Stress is not just widespread, it is trending the wrong way.

What this means: rising baseline stress leaves less slack for the normal bumps of a work week. Small frustrations - an unclear priority, a surprise deadline - land harder when people are already near capacity.

Source: Aflac - WorkForces Report 2025

How severe is the burnout people report?

76% of US workers report some level of burnout, and 53% put it at a moderate-to-severe level. This is not just mild end-of-week tiredness.

What this means: for more than half of workers, burnout is serious enough to affect how they function. That scale is why it shows up in turnover and performance data, not just employee surveys.

Source: Mind Share Partners - 2025 Mental Health at Work Report

What drives burnout

What is the biggest cause of workplace stress?

Workload. A heavy or excessive workload is named the top driver of workplace stress by 35% of workers, ahead of every other factor.

What this means: the single biggest lever on burnout is how much work lands on each person. That makes visible, well-distributed workloads a wellbeing tool, not just an operations one.

Source: Aflac - WorkForces Report 2025

What makes burnout worse?

43% of workers say they feel tense or stressed during the workday, and that figure rises to 61% among people who work in low-psychological-safety environments.

What this means: burnout is driven as much by the environment as by the workload. Teams where it is safe to say "this is too much" catch overload early; teams where it is not let it build quietly until someone breaks.

Source: APA - Work in America 2024

Is burnout about the work or the people?

Both, roughly equally. Workers attribute burnout about 50/50 to the work itself - workload and type of work - and to the people side, meaning collaboration, relationships, and team dynamics.

What this means: you cannot fix burnout by tweaking either one alone. Reasonable workloads matter, but so does reducing the friction of coordinating - the endless status pings and unclear handoffs that wear people down.

Source: Eagle Hill Consulting - Workforce Burnout Survey 2025

Who is most affected

Which generation is most burned out?

Gen Z. 74% of Gen Z workers report burnout, now ahead of millennials at 66%, and burnout falls steadily with age from there down to about 37% for boomers.

What this means: the youngest, newest workers are struggling most - often the people with the least control over their workload. Clear priorities and visible expectations matter most for exactly this group.

Source: Aflac - WorkForces Report 2025

Does remote work affect burnout?

Burnout is elevated among remote and hybrid workers: 61% of fully remote and 57% of hybrid workers report burnout, higher than their on-site peers.

What this means: remote work is not the cause, but it makes overload harder to see. Without the passive signals of an office, a shared board is often the only way a manager notices someone is quietly drowning, which ties into the remote work statistics.

Source: Eagle Hill Consulting - Workforce Burnout Survey 2025

Are managers more burned out than their teams?

Yes. Managers and experienced employees report higher burnout than entry-level workers - about 54% versus 40%.

What this means: the people expected to protect their teams from burnout are carrying more of it themselves. Anything that reduces a manager's coordination load - less status chasing, clearer visibility - protects them too.

Source: Mind Share Partners - 2025 Mental Health at Work Report

What burnout costs

How much does burnout cost employers?

Burnout costs about $4,000 per non-manager employee each year, rising to $10,824 per manager and $20,683 per executive - roughly $5 million a year for a company of 1,000 people.

What this means: burnout is a balance-sheet issue, not just a wellbeing one. The cost of preventing it - reasonable workloads, clear priorities, visible capacity - is small next to the cost of replacing the people it drives out.

Source: American Journal of Preventive Medicine - The Health and Economic Burden of Employee Burnout (2025)

How does burnout affect the work itself?

Burned-out workers say it diminishes their efficiency (72%), hurts their overall performance (71%), and worsens their attendance (56%).

What this means: burnout does not just make people unhappy, it measurably degrades output. The productivity loss shows up long before anyone quits, which is why catching it early pays for itself.

Source: Eagle Hill Consulting - Workforce Burnout Survey 2025

Burnout and quitting

How strongly does burnout drive turnover?

Strongly. Burned-out employees are about 3x more likely to plan to leave their employer within the coming year, and roughly 45% are actively job-hunting versus just 16% of those who are not burned out.

What this means: burnout is the leading edge of turnover. By the time someone hands in their notice, the workload signals that predicted it were usually visible for months - if anyone was looking.

Sources: Eagle Hill Consulting - Workforce Burnout Survey 2025; SHRM - Burnout research 2024

How many have quit over their mental health?

About 1 in 4 employees have considered leaving a job because of its toll on their mental health, and 7% actually did.

What this means: mental health is now a retention factor, not a fringe concern. The teams that keep people are the ones where the load is sustainable and the work is visible enough to rebalance.

Source: NAMI - 2025 Workplace Mental Health Poll

Managers are not spared

Are managers burning out too?

40% of managers say their mental health declined after taking on a leadership role, and 64% are contemplating a job change in search of better wellbeing.

What this means: the layer responsible for spotting burnout on their teams is itself stretched and looking for the exit. Reducing the manager's busywork - the status collation, the chasing - is one of the highest-leverage wellbeing moves a company can make, and it shows up in the meeting overload statistics too.

Sources: Deloitte - 2025 Human Capital Trends; Deloitte - Workplace Well-being 2024

Does support actually help managers?

Clearly. Managers without adequate workplace mental-health resources are far more likely to feel burned out than those with them - 73% versus 45%.

What this means: burnout responds to how work is structured and supported, not just to individual grit. Giving managers the tools to see and rebalance workload is a concrete form of that support.

Source: NAMI - 2025 Workplace Mental Health Poll

Breeze data: the median Breeze user has 31 open tasks assigned to them at any given time.

What this means: even a typical person is juggling far more open work than anyone can hold in focus at once, and that mental load is a real burnout driver. Seeing everything on one board - and being able to spot when one person is carrying too much - is how teams rebalance before it tips into overload. It is the same story behind the workplace productivity statistics and the value of visible time tracking.

Source: Breeze internal data, open tasks per assignee, 2026.

Written by Lucas

Lucas writes content at Breeze and specializes in project management, team collaboration, and practical workflow advice. He helps small teams and growing businesses plan projects, track progress, and keep work organized by sharing clear, actionable guides.