Recession increasing burn out in employees

CHICAGO, July 31 (UPI) -- Nearly half -- 45 percent -- say they think workers at their organization are currently burned out on their jobs, a U.S. survey indicates.

The national survey, by CareerBuilder.com, was conducted May 19 to June 8, included more than 2,600 hiring managers and human resource professionals and nearly 5,300 employees.

Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America, says employers who saw a rise in worker productivity during the recession primarily attribute the increase to the fear of losing a job and the effects of downsized staffs on individual workloads.

In addition, 73 percent are seeing the increase sustain today, while 14 percent state productivity has increased even more.

"The recession produced consequences for not just those who were laid off, but for those who were asked to work harder as a result of leaner staffs," Rasmussen says in a statement.

"While getting more out of a smaller workforce is a sign of organizational agility during unpredictable times, it's hard to see such yields in productivity holding forever. Headcount will be needed to meet increasing demands."

Looking at burnout from the worker's perspective -- 77 percent of workers say they are sometimes or always burned out in their jobs and 43 percent say their stress levels on the job have increased during the last six months, while only 8 percent say their workloads decreased.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive. No margin of error was provided.