A GLOBAL RESEARCH from Gallup, the World Health Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the National Academic Institutions came out with the State of Global Workplace 2026, which analyzed workplace conditions like low autonomy, emotional strain and burnout to identify roles with the lowest job satisfaction.
Unfortunately, the report said 50 percent of Filipino workers reported experiencing stress for much of the previous day, which is the highest in Southeast Asia and above the global average.
The top professions consistently associated with low job satisfaction and high burnout include:
● Elementary and Secondary School Teachers: Overworked, underpaid, and handling excessive administrative burdens.
● Nursing Assistants: Physically demanding and emotionally taxing roles in understaffed healthcare environments.
● Telemarketers / Call Center Agents: Monotonous, repetitive, and subject to high emotional strain.
● Food Service and Retail Workers: Long hours, unpredictable schedules, and frequent exposure to demanding customers.
● Journalists and Reporters: Stressed by constant deadlines and 24/7 information environments.
● Delivery, ride sharing and freelance platform workers
● Corporate middle managers
● Legal professionals, esp. paralegal and junior lawyers
● Retail workers
● Academic Researchers and University Staff
Global studies are backed by workers sharing their real feelings on the ground, Gallup explained.
In 2025, 20% of employees worldwide were engaged at work. Global employee wellbeing improved for the first time in three years, increasing by one percentage point to 34%.
The percentage of employees who reported experiencing a lot of stress, anger and sadness the previous day remained above pre-pandemic levels.
Global perceptions of the job market improved in 2025 to 52% of employees who say it is a good time to find a job where they live. The data collected covered January to December 2025 and was published last April 2026.
Relevant data included gender, age, job level, work location and region for seven key workplace topics like employee engagement; employee life evaluation; daily emotions of stress, anger, sadness, loneliness and employee job climate.
Employees that are engaged globally totalled 20 percent and 16 percent are actively disengaged and 64 are not engaged. The historic high of employee engagement was reached in 2022 and 2023 at 23 percent while the historic low was in 2009 at 12 percent. By gender employee engagement was higher for females at 21 percent and 19 percent for male employees and by age (younger than 35) was at 19 percent and for 35 or over, engagement was at 21 percent.
Engagement by middle managers was at 22 percent while for individual contributors, 19 percent.
The report said that employees who are thriving globally constituted 34 percent, while 56 percent are struggling and 9 percent are suffering.
Forty percent of employees globally experienced stress a lot of the previous day, according to the State of the Global Workplace: 2026 report.
The report said 22 percent of male and female employees worldwide experience anger daily, the highest of which happened in 2020 at 24 percent.
Also males below 35 experienced daily anger by 23 percent and those .
Global employees who experience daily sadness a lot reached 23 percent and by gender female employees experienced daily sadness at 24 percent while male employees at 23 percent. By age those younger than 35 years old experienced daily sadness at 23 percent and those 35 years.
Still, the report showed that 52 percent of those interviewed employees think it’s a good time to find a job when thinking about the job situation in the city or area where they live. On which region has the most positive job climate perception, Southeast Asia ranked highest at 64 percent followed by Australia and New Zealand with 60 percent while the US and Canada came at Number 9 with 47 percent and Middle East and North Africa at 36 percent.
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