“Worries about job losses have helped stress become the most common cause of long-term sick leave in Britain, according to a report that underlines the pressures on workers in a deteriorating labour market.

Stress has overtaken other reasons for long-term absence such as repetitive strain injury and medical conditions such as cancer.”

The article continues:

“The report highlights the strong links between job security and stress levels, with employers that are planning redundancies most likely to see a rise in mental health problems among staff.”

This is certainly to be expected given the current challenging economic times that we live in. I think the main disconnect in these articles about stress is that they infer that stress is a condition on its own, when stress in actual fact can lead to people being more susceptible to injuries and illnesses including Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) and many other health related conditions and, as such, we may not really have seen the full impact of stress on the British workforce.

Indeed I said as much in my article (from Dec. 2008) about it in the last major economic downturn in 2008 titled “RSI potential in these stressful economic times“.

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Many of these jobs will involve working at a computer for many hours a day, often continuously. If employees are working longer, in stressful environment because of job security reasons, they will be exposing themselves to health risks on top of job security risks.

According to one article -

“The TUC said research among 2,600 union safety reps showed that almost two thirds reported that stress or overwork were a concern in their workplace.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Stress casts a gloomy shadow over far too many UK workplaces. And as the current economic crisis creates more anxiety about job security, stress is likely to increase.”"

The chances of developing an RSI condition in this environment is high. Using a computer for more than 6 hours a day makes you susceptible to RSI type injuries. If you add in stress and worry over job security to this situation, it can be like adding fuel to an already smouldering fire.

It is important that all computer users realise the risks to their health that are inherent when times are tough and stress levels are high. In this situation it can be difficult to look beyond the next month, but it is way more important to take a long term view because the implications of coming down with a long term injury and its subsequent economic impact can be a lot worse than the immediate economic impact of losing your job. No job is ever worth risking your health over.

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