A large body of research shows that stress is an equal opportunity employer that rises during the holidays. Holiday stress statistics reveal that 41% of U.S. adults anticipate more holiday stress this year than last, up 28% in 2024. Data shows that 90% of employees feel stressed at work, 50% say work overload lowers their productivity and 77% insist that stress is impacting their physical health. Shift work creates such high stress that it has been called shift sulking. With stress on the rise heading into 2026, I thought it’s important to know the most stressful careers and how to prevent burnout.
The Top Stressful Careers Heading Into 2026
According to Silvija Martincevic, CEO of Deputy, workers are stretched to the max, managing difficult customers and understaffed teams, along with the emotional exhaustion, anxiety and disengagement,
An analysis from Welltory, the stress and energy management app, sought to identify the most stressful careers. The researchers created an exclusive ranking of the most stressful industries to work in across the U.S. during 2025. The industries were selected by their size and then ranked by seven factors:
- Average Weekly Hours. Longer hours often signal higher workload and increased stress levels
- Job Openings Rates. The rate of open jobs in the industry which indicates labor shortage and this will usually put more stress on the existing workers
- Workplace Injury and Illness Rate. Higher rates reflect more physically demanding or hazardous work environments.
- Average Weekly Earnings. Lower earnings contribute to financial stress, especially within industries with demanding workloads.
- Layoff and Discharge Rates. Represents how frequently workers are laid off or discharged. Higher rates indicate job insecurity which often leads to high stress.
- Employee Quit Rates. Shows the percentage of employees voluntarily leaving their jobs. High quit rates often point to dissatisfaction, burnout, or stressful working conditions.
- Worker Burnout Rate. Reflects the percentage of employees reporting burnout symptoms such as exhaustion, low motivation or mental fatigue—a direct indicator of workplace stress.
The Welltory researchers normalized each factor by using a standard scientific and statistical method called the min–max normalization formula to fairly compare values measured on different scales by bringing them into the same range. Using this formula, they ranked each industry on a scale from 1 to 100 and published the top ten most stressful industries in the U.S., along with their stress scores:
- Leisure and hospitality (66)
- Professional and business services (56)
- Transportation and warehousing (53)
- Mining and logging (50)
- Private education and health services (46)
- Private education and health services (46)
- Information (43)
- Construction (43)
- Retail trade (42)
- Utilities (42)
The rankings show that Leisure and Hospitality tops the list with the highest stress scores. Irregular hours, customer-facing work and low pay are several key factors that make jobs within this industry stressful, according to the report.
“What this data shows is that workplace stress is driven by how work is designed, not just by the nature of the job itself,” says Anna Elitzur, MD., mental health expert at Welltory. “Long hours, understaffing, injury risk and financial pressure all point to an underlying problem: imbalance between demand and recovery.”
Elitzur explains that from a medical standpoint, the brain and body don’t differentiate between physical danger, financial insecurity or cognitive overload. They respond to all of it as chronic stress.
“When stress becomes chronic across industries,” Elitzur explains, “it stops being an individual problem and instead reveals itself as a systemic issue through turnover, lost productivity, and a less resilient workforce”
How To Stay Balanced In Stressful Careers
As workers hope to recharge as they head into the New Year break, a recent survey suggests job burnout isn’t letting up even at year’s end. The MyPerfectResume survey of 1,000 U.S. workers found that 63% of employees report feeling burned out multiple times a week, 55% rate their burnout as moderate to severe and 45% are canceling birthdays and vacations because of job stress.
The study shows that stress is bleeding into the personal lives of employees, shaping their end-of-year career decisions. It concludes that U.S. workers are running on exhausted fumes, feel unsupported and coping the only way they know how: by disengaging, canceling personal plans and quietly looking for the exit.
As if these findings aren’t alarming enough, the Welltory researchers raise equally disturbing questions: Is stress shifting from desk jobs to frontline roles? When did burnout stop being a white-collar issue? And is the U.S. economy now running on exhausted workers?
Findings from the Resume Genius 2025 High-Pressure, High-Paying Jobs Report, sheds some light on these questions, suggesting that job stress and burnout are equal opportunity employers, infiltrating both white-collar desk jobs and blue-collar frontline roles. The report identifies the top 10 white-collar jobs where high stress also comes with six-figure salaries that require extensive education such as physician or judge.
“The financial rewards often come at the cost of work-life balance. From a career strategy standpoint, the key is stability,” declares Eva Chan, career expert at Resume Genius. “The people who thrive in these careers are those who pair technical expertise with emotional intelligence. The importance is knowing how to deliver results under pressure without letting stress take control.”
Wellness perks such as mental health days, four-day workweeks, wellness stipends and hybrid options haven’t fixed the problem, according to Manhattan Mental Health Counseling. “More than a workplace problem, burnout is a cultural one,” the organization explains. “If the workplace still rewards overextension, wellness perks only scratch the surface.”
Excelling in high-pressure roles–whether they’re frontline or white-collar roles– requires more than perks or technical skills. It takes smart habits that support focus, balance and long-term performance, according to Steven Buchwald, mental health expert from Manhattan Mental Health Counseling. He points out that the path back to balance isn’t about grand lifestyle changes but smaller, more consistent shifts such as setting micro-boundaries.
Setting non-negotiable cut-off times, communicating capacity clearly, and taking genuine recovery breaks are a few strategies that Buchwald advises to significantly reduce chronic stress for those who work in stressful careers. “Therapy often helps workers unlearn perfectionism and the fear of appearing ‘replaceable,’ which fuels burnout cycles.,” he adds. “Ultimately, achieving balance requires both personal boundaries and organizational change, but individuals can start reclaiming control today with small, consistent shifts.”