Ranked: The world’s 20 most stressed-out cities

NEW YORK: Last year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) categorised burnout as an officially diagnosable syndrome stemming from chronic workplace stress. Elevating a condition to a syndrome means it’s been added to the WHO’s official compilation of diseases. But it turns out that burnout is more serious than anyone thought—especially when a 2018-Gallup survey showed that it affects nearly a quarter of the workforce on a regular basis.

Sleep research site Savvy Sleeper recently conducted a study to determine the world’s cities with the highest and lowest levels of workplace burnout. A total of 69 cities from 53 countries were analyzed.

The study looked to key health and work-related categories to standardize the research, including percentage of population sleeping less than seven hours a night, percentage of population working more than 48 hours a week, time spent in traffic, mental health disorders and prevalence, lack of motivation at work, employee “presenteeism” and productivity, lack of vacation days, annual work hours and percentage of stressed-out Glassdoor reviews, reported foreign media.

While the findings reveal low levels of workplace burnout for places like Tallinn, Estonia; Ljubljana, Slovenia and many other European cities, three US cities—Los Angeles (#9), Chicago (#12) and New York (#17)—ranked among the top 20 cities with the highest levels of workplace burnout. San Francisco (26th overall) and Miami (27th overall) rounded out the list of the top five most burned-out cities in the United States.

Another surprise: While New York is constantly referred to as “the city that never sleeps,” this study shows that Chicago, which comes in second on the list, has higher levels of burnout. “For example, Chicago has a higher volume of stressed employee on Glassdoor reviews than New York, and Chicago employees also report longer annual working hours, which is why its scores are worse overall,” says Doyle.

“Our research suggests businesses should make addressing some of the factors affecting employee work-life balance a priority. Not only will this ensure staff health and wellbeing is protected, but it will also help companies continue to recruit and retain top talent,” says Doyle.

Read on for the list of the world’s top 20 cities with the most burned-out workers, as well as the list of the 10 cities with the least burned-out workers.

World’s 20 Most Burned-Out Cities

1. Tokyo, Japan,2. Mumbai, India, 3.Seoul, South Korea, 4.Istanbul, Turkey, 5. Manila, Philippines, 6. Jakarta, Indonesia, 7. Hanoi, Vietnam, 8. Taipei, Taiwan, 9. Los Angeles, 10. Buenos Aires, Argentina, 11. Sydney, Australia, 12. Chicago, 13. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 14. London, United Kingdom, 15. Bogota, Colombia 16. Beijing, China, 17. New York City, 18. Johannesburg, South Africa, 19. Auckland, New Zealand, 20. Hong Kong.

World’s 10 Least Burned-Out Cities

1. Tallinn, Estonia, 2. Ljubljana, Slovenia, 3. Oslo, Norway, 4. Sofia, Bulgaria, 5. Copenhagen, Denmark, 6. Barcelona, Spain, 7. Amsterdam, Netherlands, 8. Bucharest, Romania, 9. Frankfurt, Germany, 10. Prague, Czech Republic.