Every day there’s worrying information on the rising deterioration of employees’ psychological well being. Since 2016, the variety of momentary incapacity processes linked to psychological well being issues has doubled: from round 280,000 sick go away then to 643,000 in 2024. In addition, sick go away as a result of psychological problems is extra severe. While peculiar momentary incapacity lasts about 45 days, in psychological problems the common sick go away is 116 days, in keeping with the Socioeconomic research of the evolution of momentary incapacity and accident charges in Spain directed by researchers José María Peiró and Lorenzo Serrano, from the University of Valencia (IVIE).
Evidence abounds connecting work overload and psychological well being. Josh Dizieza in How Hard Robots Will Make Us Work, in The Verge, notes the bodily and psychological penalties of labor overload in Amazon workers who on the finish of the day go to sleep of their automotive within the warehouse parking zone earlier than returning residence.
Based on these research and his analysis, Adrián Todolí, professor of Labor Law on the University of Valencia, has delved deeper into the causes of this phenomenon from a authorized perspective. Its function was to discern whether or not the rise in sick go away was an issue of absenteeism or the depth of the work that “is making those who perform it sick.”
In The Escape from Work: Work Overload, Mental Health and Fundamental Rights (Aranzadi), Professor Todolí assures that “the scientific evidence is conclusive. Excessive work demands decisively condition the mental health of workers in Spain.”
Among the causes of this deterioration are the introduction of technological and organizational modifications, the lack of power of unions and the deregulation of the labor market. Considers that these parts “have favored an increase in the unilateral power of the employer to demand levels of effort and speed, taking advantage of situations of contractual insecurity such as layoffs, temporary employment or generalized precariousness.”
Todolí dismantles myths. “A greater workload does not equal greater productivity. Work overload harms both productivity and health.” He additionally believes that decreasing the working day doesn’t resolve the problem. “The government proposes reducing the working day, which seems very good to me. But if they reduce your working hours and make you work more, you end up just as exhausted and when you get home you have no energy for your children.”
It confirms the phenomenon of “the flight from work that occurs when young people abandon employment because they think that it is not worth working for what they are paid and the elderly prefer early retirement because they cannot tolerate certain conditions.”
Consider protecting laws that measures overload a precedence. He offers the instance of Poland, which has established “a maximum consumption of kilojoules of energy per hour (unit of measurement of energy, work or heat) in physical work: exceeding that amount is understood to endanger the person’s health.” Another subject by which it’s essential to strengthen the function of unions.
https://elpais.com/economia/2026-03-23/sobrecarga-de-trabajo-y-salud-mental.html