Mobile working world is getting more and more sick

Mobile working world and flexibility: Mental suffering of workers in Germany is growing rapidly

17/08/2012

More and more people in Germany can no longer adequately separate their private life with their profession. As a result, it is not uncommon for private life to be postponed due to the tasks in the job. So many people work on the weekends or constantly work overtime. Due to the technical development and the „permanent accessibility“ Many workers are always available by phone. The consequences are a continuous increase in mental health problems.

Increase in mental illness by 120 percent
The number of mental illnesses has increased by more than 120 percent since 1994. Back and forth commuting, overtime and the constant accessibility make more and more people in Germany mentally ill. According to a recent study by the statutory health insurance companies, some millions of employees in Germany do not know any clearly defined boundaries between working and working life. As a result, more and more people feel unbalanced, stressed and depressed.

Sick sentences due to mental illnesses have soared according to the Absenteeism Report 2012 of the Scientific Institute of the General Local Health Insurance Fund AOK (WidO) due to these increasing burdens in recent years. In view of the study results, the managing board of the AOK-Verband, Uwe Deh, „clear barriers for flexibility“.

„Basically, it is good for the health if employees can adapt their work spatially and temporally to their own needs. But this flexibility needs its limits“, explains Helmut Schröder, co-editor of the AOK Absentee Report and Deputy Managing Director of WIdO.

More and more people are depressed and exhausted
According to the report, employees complain of twice as many complaints as depression, fatigue, stress and headaches than others when they can not clearly separate job and free time. According to the evaluations found, one in five study participants complains about fatigue or an inability to switch off. One of the authors, Helmut Schröder, reports that workers „are exposed to great mental stress, if they are constantly reachable, always working at the highest limit, have long working hours and bad job and leisure can separate“.

Mails and calls also in the free time
More than one in three employees in Germany also receive emails and telephone calls outside normal working hours or work overtime. According to recent surveys, 37 million people are employees in Germany. According to this, over 12 million people are affected by overtime and constant accessibility.

About one in ten workers take work tasks home to do at home. Every eighth said he had „Difficulties in sufficiently reconciling work and leisure“. In addition, every second said he was „in principle also reachable outside normal working hours“.

"All of these burdens in everyday work cause these workers to suffer more from mental health problems than those who are not exposed to these burdens“, reports Schröder. The sufferers complain not only about exhaustion from too much work, but also about headaches and depression. On average, every salaried worker mentions more than 1.5 of these symptoms. The "delimitation of work and leisure clearly leads to more mental health problems".

Commuting causes a higher disease risk
An ever-increasing problem is the commuting between job and place of residence. According to the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden, twelve percent of employees commute daily between 25 and 50 kilometers per single trip. Four percent of Germans commute more than 100 kilometers per day each way. For years statisticians have observed an increase in jobs far away. According to the scientific study of „WidO“ increases the risk of disease „commuting workers by 20 percent compared to others“. Commuters are more frequently on sick leave.

40 percent of commuters travel to work every day for over an hour. Securing a job or advancement opportunities demand their spiritual tribune. More and more people, especially from urban areas, are taking ever longer journeys to work. According to the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development, every German lays down an average of 17 kilometers every day to reach his place of work.

So far, it has not been proven how many employees actually get ill for the reasons mentioned or how the psychological suffering develops over the years. The authors see a context here. For there are parallels between the increase in increasing flexibility in the labor market and the increase in mental illnesses. Last year, over 130,000 people were diagnosed due to a diagnosis „Burn-out syndrome“ temporarily incapacitated for work. The number of sick leave has increased by a factor of eight in the last seven years. For the year 2011, the health insurances counted about 2.7 million sick days.

Rapid increase in therapeutic treatments
According to Deh, the number of AOK insured, „who are in treatment due to a mental illness, has increased by about 40 percent. The increased number of patients cause at the health insurance companies also more and more expenses. Thus alone the AOK federation had to spend 9.5 billion euros for therapies. „That is about 1 billion euros more than in the previous year“, so deh. The AOK-Kassenverbund therefore demands from the employers, the more flexible working environment for employees „to make it more compatible“. So the report author Antje Ducki demanded of the economy, „Work should be as predictable as possible, be predictable, make sense.“ Above all, the superiors are in demand here.

More identification with the job
„More and more people identified with their work and their respective projects“, reports Ducki. Self-employed freelancers are becoming more and more „to the prototype of professional life in Germany“ become. Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of Health announced that it would come forward with timely strategies to prevent mental illness. Because the encompassing burn-out-suffering „could soon become a major economic problem“, how hot it is. (Sb)

Read about:
Commuters often suffer from mental health problems
Common mental illnesses among commuters
Young employees twice as often on sick leave
Back pain is the most common cause of sick leave
More missing days due to mental illness
Burnout syndrome becomes a ticking time bomb
Mental illnesses cause high costs

Picture: Gerd Altmann