Job-related stress is a concern for the large majority of the European workforce, according to the Second European Opinion Poll on Occupational Safety and Health.

Seventy four per cent of the working population in Malta think that the number of people suffering from job-related stress over the next five years will increase

The survey, conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, measured the opinions of over 35,000 members of the public in 36 European countries (including Malta) on contemporary workplace issues including job-related stress, and the importance of occupational safety and health for economic competitiveness and in the context of longer working lives.

Eighty per cent of the working population across Europe think that the number of people suffering from job-related stress over the next five years will increase (74 per cent in Malta) with as many as 52 per cent (46 per cent in Malta) expecting this to “increase a lot”.

This echoes the findings of EU-OSHA’s ESENER survey on new and emerging workplace risks which found that 79 per cent of managers think that stress is an issue in their companies, making stress at work as important as workplace accidents for companies.

Work-related stress is one of the biggest health and safety challenges faced in Europe, representing a huge cost in terms of human distress and economic performance. The poll additionally found that the large majority of Europeans (86 per cent) agree that following good occupational safety and health practices is necessary for a country’s economic competitiveness, with 56 per cent strongly agreeing. Views are similar among workers and those who do not work (86 per cent and 85 per cent agree respectively).

In Malta 26 per cent of respondents believe they are very well informed about the risks of health and safety at the workplace, an increase from the figure of 14 per cent in a similar survey in 2009. Forty five per cent of those surveyed said they are well informed.

In another question, 58 per cent of Maltese respondents said they consider good health and safety practices to be “very important” in helping people work longer before they retire. Furthermore, 66 per cent were confident that health and safety issues would be addressed if these were brought to the attention of their supervisor at work.

Asked whether they agreed that good health and safety practices contributed to economic competitiveness, 70 per cent of Maltese respondents says they “very much agreed”.

“The financial crisis and the changing world of work is making increased demands on workers, therefore it is unsurprising that work-related stress is at the forefront of people’s minds,” said Christa Sedlatschek, director of EU-OSHA.

“Regardless of age, gender and organisation size an overwhelming majority of people believe that work-related stress will rise. Nonetheless there are interesting national variations in those who expect job-related stress to ‘increase a lot’, with Norwegians least worried (16 per cent), for instance, and Greeks most worried about rising stress (83 per cent ‘increase a lot’). Tackling psychosocial risks is a major focus of EU-OSHA’s work to improve the lives of workers across Europe,” he said.