The workplace climate is burning us out

Key Findings

Workers can take only so much stress, and burnout occurs when workers face a chronic, unmanageable amount. The past couple of years have been stressful for workers. They are less optimistic about their company’s business outlooks and worried about potential or ongoing layoffs. In this research, we explore trends in Glassdoor reviews related to burnout.

Burnout rates continued rising into 2026

Workers mention burnout in Glassdoor reviews at much higher rates than they did before the pandemic, and those rates continued their climb. Burnout appears 2.5x more in reviews than before the pandemic in 2019, and were up 65% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026.

Burnout mentions first climbed in mid-2021, appearing about 50% more than they had previously. This rate remained steady for a few years, but began climbing again in 2024. Last year saw the sharpest increase yet, as companies sought to contain costs and asked employees to adapt to an increasingly uncertain labor market.

Burnout is about more than work-life balance

Workers who mention burnout in their Glassdoor reviews are 81% less likely to give a positive work-life balance rating (4- or 5-stars) than workers in similar roles. Work-life balance isn’t the only thing, though: workers are more likely to give a negative rating about every component of their job when they are burnt out.

Of course burnt out employees are less likely to give positive ratings of work-life balance (81% less likely to be positive) and culture & values (73% less likely). Even factors that are not directly tied to burnout are much less positive, like compensation and benefits (60% less likely), DE&I (66% less likely) and the company’s business outlook (76% less likely).

Nonprofit and healthcare workers are the most burnt out

Workers in some jobs and industries are more likely to experience burnout than others. Across all industries, mentions of burnout in Glassdoor reviews increased between 2019 and 2025. The chart below shows how each industry moved, highlighting the industries with the highest rate of burnout mentions or the biggest increases.

Nonprofit & NGO workers were the most burnt out in 2025, but they were also the most burnt out in 2019. Healthcare workers were the second-most burnt out in both years, and they became much more likely to mention burnout in 2025. Media, technology, and real estate - industries that have seen dramatic changes post-pandemic - showed some of the largest increases in burnout rates since 2019.

Burned out workers stopped looking for a way out

Not all reviews mentioning burnout are negative. The proportion of positive reviews (4- or 5-stars) mentioning burnout increased by 35% from 2024 to 2025. These employees are an important part of the workforce: burnout is their chief complaint, and they still hold a positive view of their employers.

These burned out workers represented an increased flight risk in 2024, applying for 49% more jobs on Glassdoor than their peers. In 2025, this trend reversed: burned out employees applied for 45% fewer external jobs than other employees who gave positive reviews. 

This may be because the labor market in 2025 was particularly difficult for job seekers, with a “frozen” labor market, prolonged depression of hiring rates and increasing rates of long-term unemployment. Rather than hitting a challenging labor market to find an alternative position, these workers are sticking it out with their current employers.

Conclusion

Workers have found themselves in a relatively weak position in the labor market, combined with more business and policy uncertainty. As these conditions continue, the stress is starting to show in Glassdoor reviews, with burnout mentions growing at an alarming rate. While there are steps employees can take to avoid and manage burnout, employers can only ask so much before burnout sets in and workers have nothing left to give.

Methodology

For this research, we analyzed Glassdoor reviews from US-based full-time or part-time employees between January 2018 and March 20, 2026. Review keywords included “burnout” and variants like “burned/burnt out” or “burning us out”. Job search counts were the number of applications started by a Glassdoor user within 30 days after leaving a review.