It’s Harder to Go to Work, Report Says : Job stress: U.N. study points to growing evidence of problems around the world where companies are doing little to help employees cope with the strain of modern industrialization.

WASHINGTON —  If it’s getting harder to go to work, there may be good reason. The U.N.’s International Labor Organization says job stress is increasing to the point of a worldwide epidemic affecting some of the most ordinary jobs.

Waitresses in Sweden, teachers in Japan, postal workers in America, bus drivers in Europe and assembly line workers everywhere are all showing increasing signs of job stress, a U.N. report says.

Pressure to keep up with machines, no say about the job and low pay for long hours have left millions of workers burned out, accident-prone or sick, the report says. And frequently workers must cope with the growing practice of supervisors electronically monitoring performance by computer.

“We now know that stress is a global phenomenon,” said U.N. job stress expert Vittorio G. Di Martino in an interview. “We thought in the past that it hit mostly white-collar workers in the industrialized countries. It’s time to put that myth to rest.”

The report, “Job Stress: The 20th-Century Disease,” points to growing evidence of problems around the world, including developing countries, where, it says, companies are doing little to help employees cope with the strain of modern industrialization.

The international organization estimates the cost of job stress in the United States alone at $200 billion annually from compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, added health insurance costs and direct medical expenses for related diseases such as ulcers, high blood pressure and heart attack.

Stress-related injury claims on the job have climbed from 5% of all occupational disease claims in 1980 to 15% a decade later, the report says.

Work pressure is so intense in Japan that the Japanese have coined a phrase for death by overwork: Karoshi. A survey cited in the report says 40% of all Japanese workers fear that they literally will work themselves to death.

Major factors in the stressful nature of a job are not only the demands of the work but the lack of control many workers have over their jobs, Di Martino said.

“Blue-collar workers face high demand but very little control and little autonomy in the way they can cope with the pressure,” he said.

As the use of computers spreads throughout the world, workers in many countries are being subjected to new pressures, including electronic eavesdropping by superiors, the report says.

In airline offices, government agencies, insurance companies, mail-order houses and telephone companies, workers find themselves constantly checked by employers who can monitor everything from how quickly they perform a task to the frequency and length of breaks.

“This may be reassuring for the employer but not for the worker,” the report says.

Among other evidence of worldwide job stress cited in the report:

* A British study showed that repetitive work was not necessarily stressful, but when the worker is required to keep up with a machine, anxiety levels increase.

* Another British study showed that police officers found organizational and management pressures more stressful than dealing with crime scenes, handling violent incidents or even informing bereaved relatives of victims.

* Studies of teachers in Japan showed that 40% suffer from health problems that could be related to stress.

The U.N. report cites instances in the United States, Mexico, Japan, Canada, India and Sweden where companies have taken steps to reduce stress on their employees.

The most successful, it says, are those that are willing to help employees deal with stress and “re-engineer the workplace to make it better suited to human aptitudes and aspirations.”