One in six Dutch workers have a stressful job

Last year, 16 percent of workers in the Netherlands reported having a stressful job - they have to meet high demands and have little room to shape their own work. Stress levels were highest in jobs where employees have to work according to fixed instructions or protocols, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) concluded in a new study.

Pharmacy assistants were the most likely to call their jobs stressful at 50.8 percent. Stress levels were also high for teachers (38.5%), bartenders and wait staff (34.4%), and people with medical professions - doctors (35.0%), nurses (34.2%), and assistants at medical practices (38.5%).

In addition to the 16 percent of workers who described their jobs as completely stressful, 32 percent said that they have to meet high standards, and 42 percent said that they have little room to shape their work as they wish to.

The study also showed that stressed employees are more negative about their future. They believe that their work will become less enjoyable (52%), more difficult (39%), and more mentally taxing (50%) in the coming five years. Employees with stressful work are also almost twice as likely (46.7%) as the general population (28.4%) to say that more measures are needed to address work pressure.