More than half of Indian employees are logging off from work exhausted

• Over 43% of India’s working population is either anxious, depressed or isolated, says a report.
• The mental health of Indians is keeping over half of them from performing effectively at work.
• Employees without emergency savings are 60% more likely to find it difficult to concentrate on their work.
• The 20-29 age group are significantly worse off than people under 40 with a low mental health score.

Over half of Indian employees are logging off work feeling exhausted and over 60% of them notice their colleagues feeling stressed, says the Asian Mental Health index report by Aon and TELUS Health. Moreover, over 43% of India’s working population is either anxious, depressed or isolated, says the report which surveyed 13,000 workers living across 12 Asian countries.

“The Mental Health Index score for India is 64, indicating that the mental health of employees there is strained despite being 1.6 points higher than the median,” the report said. An index over 80 is considered optional while a figure between 50 and 79 is considered ‘strained’ and anything below that is considered distressed.



The mental health of Indians is keeping over half of them – 53% – from performing effectively at work. And over 45% say that they find it more difficult concentrating on work than they did last year. India ranks among the nations where the highest proportion of employees face productivity difficulties.

Mental health problems can result in low employee engagement, absenteeism and presenteeism, and increased turnover. The most prevalent mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, are estimated to cost the global economy $1 trillion per year in reduced productivity.


Emergency fund & inner peace

It’s not just work-related exhaustion and burnout that’s troubling to the working age population of Asian nations. Financial insecurity is also amongst the likely causes.

“Other factors may include cost-of-living challenges, rising healthcare costs, climate change impacts, geopolitical instability, and the increasingly complex and ambiguous nature of today’s workplace, which has been changing rapidly since Covid-19,” the report reads.

As many as 33% of Indians surveyed said that they have an emergency fund to cover over three months of essential expenses – and a similar percentage said that they can get by with their funds for two months.

While 21% intend to start one in the current year, 8% believe they can get by on credit without an emergency fund.

These funds are a key factor in deciding workplace productivity as employees without emergency savings are 60% more likely to find it more difficult to concentrate on their work as compared to those with emergency savings, the report says.


The young are tired

Yet another key finding of the report is that older employees are fitter mentally. Employees under 40 particularly feel the strain of poor mental health.

The 20-29 age group are significantly worse off with a mental health index score of 57.8. “It represents the most strain and the highest mental health risk of any age group by a significant margin,” the report says.

Under 40s are 50% more likely than over 50s to feel mentally and or physically exhausted at the end of their workday – indicating that the older group of employees are handling work much better than their younger colleagues.