630,000 Swedes feel that they always have too high a workload, shows a new report from the Work Environment Agency. The problem is greatest in healthcare and education.
– There is some kind of fundamental structural problem, says the Norwegian Working Environment Agency’s Director General Lars Lööw.
Close to 37 percent of those who answered in the Work Environment Agency’s survey that they always have too high a workload work in healthcare, social care or education.
The Swedish Work Environment Agency sees no major differences based on age, gender, level of education or form of employment.
– Unfortunately, I am not surprised that the biggest challenge is within the welfare professions. In the reports we order, we see that the working environment comes second, third or fourth in these professions. When you work with the work environment, there is a reaction to high sickness absence and at the individual level, instead of at the structural level and with preventive work, says Lars Lööw to TT.
Engaged in the jobs
Lööw believes that welfare workers are often committed to their jobs – and that this can affect the work environment in a negative way.
– Employers can probably abuse the commitment, which in the long run leads to people not being able to cope.
Notifications of occupational diseases due to organizational and social reasons have increased by 30 percent in one year. The increase is primarily about an unhealthy workload, according to the Swedish Work Environment Agency.
“Terrible”
– It’s terrible, says Lööw.
Breaking a bad working environment can be difficult, but Lars Lööw believes that it is possible.
– The basic recipe is systematic work environment work, but it must take place at the right level in the organization. We need to find where the structural problems are, we as an authority need to do that together with employers and employee organisations, he says.
