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People who work in the ‘health and community services’ sector are the most stressed in Australia.  The announcement comes just two days from Lifeline’s annual Stress Down Day on Friday.

Following the ‘health and community services’ sector, people working in ‘education’ are the next most stressed, with ‘personal and other services’ (which includes religious services, public order, interest groups, as well as the hire sector) coming third.

Breaking down gender, the most stressful jobs for women are nursing and carers work, followed by labour intensive jobs and then other health professionals.  For men it’s labour related work, followed by men who work in trades and then transport workers.

The information comes from the latest workers’ compensation statistics from Safe Work Australia. 

The data from workers’ compensation claims (from http://nosi.ascc.gov.au/Default.aspx) also shows that the cost of stress related claims are as much as three times higher than the median claim.

“The median worker compensation payment for Australian workers, in all industries, is $6,100.  But for mental stress it is $15,500,” Lifeline Sydney said today.  “That’s a considerably higher cost for stress related claims.”

A similar result can be found when comparing the median time off work for all claims and for mental stress claims.

“When we look at the time off work on workers’ compensation, the median is 4.1 weeks.  When the claim is stress related however, it climbs to 10.9, again almost triple,” Lifeline said.

“Lifeline is calling on all Australians to manage their own stress levels before they become unhealthy.  We all have a role to play in preventing unhealthy stress in our lives.”

To help the country stress less, Lifeline Australia is holding Stress Down Day, on Friday 24 July.  For more information, go to www.stressdown.org.au or text the word ‘stressdown’ to 0485 4RELAX.

Please donate to Lifeline Sydney and Sutherland.

Chris Wagner
Lifeline Australia
Chris.Wagner@lifeline.org.au