Health situation is deteriorating Swiss employees suffer from emotional exhaustion
Travailsuisse's "Good Work Barometer" shows that Swiss employees are often working longer hours. Overtime and stress are increasing. At the same time, they find it difficult to switch off after work.
20.11.2025, 09:45
SDA
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- Swiss employees are finding it increasingly difficult to disconnect from work, leading to more overtime, stress and emotional exhaustion.
- According to the "Good Work Barometer", the health situation in particular has deteriorated, while the overall quality of work has remained stable.
- Despite the high workload, over 80% of respondents are satisfied with their work, with working from home tending to lead to greater satisfaction.
More overtime and stress far beyond working hours: Swiss employees are finding it increasingly difficult to separate themselves from their work, according to the "Good Work Barometer" published on Thursday on behalf of the trade union umbrella organization Travailsuisse. Overall, however, the quality of work in Switzerland remained stable.
According to the overall assessment of over 1,400 respondents, the quality of work fell only slightly - from 67.7 to 67 points compared to 2024. The decline is primarily due to the renewed deterioration in the health situation, Travailsuisse announced at a media conference in Bern on Thursday.
According to the survey, there was a significant deterioration in the area of health in 2025 compared to the previous year. According to Travailsuisse, this is due to increasing stress levels among employees, with working hours being a key driver.
More overtime and presenteeism
Half of all employees surveyed regularly worked overtime. Almost a quarter of those surveyed worked more than ten hours a day - a figure that increased by around 2.5% compared to the previous year.
"These figures clearly show that overworking is no longer an exception, but has become part of everyday life for many employees," Travailsuisse President Adrian Wüthrich was quoted as saying in a press release on the occasion of the presentation of the barometer.
After a brief decline during the Covid-19 pandemic, presenteeism (working despite illness) has quickly climbed back to pre-pandemic levels, the analysis of the barometer continues. In addition, the effects of work-related stress continue to increase. This trend points to an increasing risk to the health of employees.
Stress far beyond working hours
In terms of workload, it is also apparent that the psychological strain goes far beyond the actual working hours and the stress experienced during work: around four out of ten employees surveyed stated that they were often emotionally exhausted at the end of the working day. In addition, 42.4 percent of respondents often or very often suffered from stress.
Although these figures were down compared to 2024, they were only at a low level. According to Travailsuisse, this underlines the fact that emotional exhaustion is a serious stress factor at work. Blurred boundaries between work and private life, insufficient time for recovery and a lack of work-life balance are particularly problematic.
Employees in Switzerland are also finding it increasingly difficult to separate themselves from their work. For example, 27.8 percent of respondents stated that they were expected to be available outside of working hours. Around a third of respondents also stated that they did not have enough time to relax during the week. A fifth of respondents even found it almost impossible to reconcile work and private life.
Working from home leads to new rifts
According to Barometer 2025, there is also a widening gap between workplaces with and without the option to work from home. More than 42 percent of respondents stated that they had worked from home at least some of the time.
According to the survey, they were more satisfied overall thanks to greater autonomy and flexibility. By contrast, jobs without the option to work from home were usually associated with more stressful working conditions.
Home office options could therefore have a positive effect on satisfaction and work-life balance. At the same time, however, working from home makes it more difficult to separate work and private life.
More than three quarters of employees satisfied
However, the analysis of the survey also reveals rays of hope: 82.6% of respondents stated that they were satisfied with their work - a slight increase compared to the previous year. Furthermore, slightly more employees than in 2024 felt that their work makes an important contribution to society. The motivation dimension also had the highest score of the entire survey.
According to Travailsuisse, the area of security also showed stable results compared to the previous year. Concerns about one's own job remain stable, after fears of losing one's job had fallen sharply in recent years due to the low unemployment rate and the shortage of skilled workers.
It should be noted here that current economic policy developments could not yet be taken into account at the time of the survey. These could have an additional negative impact on the outlook, according to the analysis accompanying the report. These include, for example, the tariffs announced by the USA against Swiss exports at the beginning of August.
The barometer has been conducted annually by Travailsuisse and the Bern University of Applied Sciences since 2015. For the 2025 edition, 1422 people across Switzerland were surveyed online. According to Travailsuisse, the barometer sheds light on the quality of working conditions and how they are changing in Switzerland.
