Workplace mental health crisis costs 840,000 lives yearly; Peru must act on psychosocial risks

When someone asks you how work is going, pause before you answer. Take a moment to think about what you're really saying. Because somewhere in the world right now, work is killing people—not in sudden, visible ways, but through the slow accumulation of long hours, job insecurity, harassment, and the grinding uncertainty of how you'll pay next month's rent. Every year, more than 840,000 people die from causes linked to psychosocial risks at work. They die from heart disease, from depression, from the body's rebellion against sustained stress. These are not workplace accidents. They are the price of how we have chosen to organize labor.

In Peru, this is not a distant problem. Seven out of every ten workers experience chronic stress. One in six faces burnout—that particular exhaustion where you have nothing left to give. Last year, the health ministry recorded 1.7 million people seeking mental health treatment, most of them struggling with anxiety, depression, or the aftermath of severe stress. What was once considered exceptional—a person breaking under work pressure—has become ordinary. It is the texture of working life for millions.

The problem is not new, but it is changing shape and scale in ways that demand attention. Digital tools now track not just what workers produce but how they produce it, creating a sense of constant surveillance. Remote and hybrid work have erased the boundary between office and home, so the job follows you into your kitchen, your bedroom, your evening. New forms of employment—gig work, contract positions, informal arrangements—have replaced the stability of traditional jobs with perpetual uncertainty about income and rights. Meanwhile, the broader world intrudes: political tensions, social instability, economic anxiety all seep into the workplace and settle there.

The risks have not disappeared; they have simply transformed. A worker might face relentless workload with little control over how to manage it. They might work in isolation or in an environment where violence and harassment are tolerated. Globally, nearly a quarter of all workers have experienced some form of harassment or violence in their working lives. More than a third work more than 48 hours a week. These conditions do more than damage individual health. They erode productivity, increase absenteeism, and ultimately undermine the organizations that tolerate them. The International Labour Organization calculates that psychosocial risks cost the world economy 1.37 percent of global GDP annually and rob humanity of nearly 45 million years of healthy life each year.

The solution, according to the ILO, is not to ask workers to manage stress better or to meditate their way through impossible conditions. It is to redesign how work itself is organized. This means examining three interconnected levels: the nature of the work itself—its demands, its purpose, whether it uses people's actual skills; the way it is managed—whether roles are clear, whether workers have any say in how they do their jobs, whether supervision builds trust or breeds fear; and the broader systems that govern it—employment contracts, working hours, how performance is evaluated, whether workers and employers actually talk to each other about problems.

In practical terms, this translates to concrete steps. Review workloads and work rhythms to prevent sustained overload. Define roles clearly so people know what is expected and can reasonably meet it. Build leadership that creates trust and support, not just task completion. Establish systems that prevent and address violence and harassment. Create genuine space for workers and employers to identify problems together and solve them. This is not abstract philosophy. It is a specific agenda for organizing work better.

The premise underlying this approach matters: the problem is not that workers are fragile or that they lack resilience. The problem is the conditions. Evidence shows that stress-management programs offered to individuals, without changing the work itself, fail. What works is changing how work is organized. Peru faces particular urgency here. The country's large informal economy, the patchwork of labor protections, the vast differences in working conditions across sectors—all of this means that a preventive, systemic approach is not optional. It is essential. Integrating psychosocial risks into occupational safety policy, building capacity in companies (especially small and medium enterprises), and fostering genuine dialogue between workers and employers are the necessary steps.

On April 28th each year, the world marks the Day for Safety and Health at Work. This year, the focus shifts to something less visible but increasingly decisive: the psychological and mental health dimensions of work. So when someone asks you how work is going, listen carefully to your own answer. In that response lives both the wellbeing of the person answering and the sustainability of the organization asking.