Burnout Hits 1 in 3 Australian Workers, Survey Finds

More than one in three Australian workers are experiencing burnout. The odds rise sharply in workplaces with “high levels of system friction,” according to a new survey that points to job design, not the people doing the work.

The State of Workplace Burnout Report, published by think tank Infinite Potential with Beyond Blue and the University of Technology Sydney Business School, drew responses from 999 Australian workers. Its headline finding is stark: workplace friction was associated with 84 per cent higher odds of burnout.

What Friction Looks Like

Friction isn’t abstract. Anna Stephens, a senior lecturer at the UTS Business School and researcher at The Ultimo Institute who helped design and run the survey, said organisational factors linked to burnout create “unnecessary difficulties in actually completing your work.” She cited poorly designed online systems, lengthy bureaucratic processes, unclear instructions and expectations, and pointless meetings.

John Chan, the study author and Infinite Potential’s managing director, described the cognitive load as workplace “friction.” He said organisations with very low burnout rates looked very different from those with very high rates, and he wanted to understand why. “We’re trying to move this conversation away from the individual,” he said.

Stephens said the damage follows people home. “They are a drain on our cognitive and our emotional resources, and they leave us with less fuel in the tank, not just for work, but for the important things in our life as well,” she said.

Insecurity Takes a Toll

Job security marked the sharpest divide in the data. Burnout affected 68 per cent of Australians who didn’t feel secure in their jobs, compared with 20 per cent of those who felt very secure. Chan said insecurity could stem from restructures, global politics or uncertainty about AI. He also flagged fragmentation—the constant switching between meetings, tasks and software without much control—as a significant factor. Stephens described it as “constant interruption or multiple competing priorities” that divide attention.

One Worker’s Story

Amlan Sharma, a 38-year-old occupational therapist, said exhaustion, feeling less purposeful and confident, and achieving less at a job he loved became normal in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic. He began noticing similar experiences among some of his patients. “That’s where I started to realise: ‘Hang on, I might be burnt out,’” he said.

Sharma, a father who also cares for a family member, said rigid schedules and limited autonomy wore him down. “It was high job demands, excessive workload, time pressure, constant interruptions,” he said. Problems beyond his control added to the strain. He moved to self-employment and cut his hours, despite the financial challenges, and said the change helped his recovery. “Over time I started to realise that actually I’m not the problem,” he said.

Caution From Researchers

Not everyone considered the findings groundbreaking. Paula Brough, a professor of organisational psychology and director of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing in the Business School at Griffith University, didn’t contribute to the survey and urged caution because of its small sample. She said the reported burnout levels were a little higher than she expected, and that there was “nothing new” in linking environmental factors with burnout.

Brough noted that the survey findings didn’t include participants’ industries. Burnout is typically higher in public-facing and high-risk jobs, she said, including bus driving, customer service and emergency services. She stressed that stress and burnout aren’t interchangeable. “Burnout is the extreme end of the continuum [and] stress is the start of it,” she said.

The survey used the World Health Organization definition of burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” and “not a medical condition.” WHO identifies three dimensions: exhaustion, increased mental distance or cynicism toward one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy. Chan said all three must be present. The term has become a buzzword, he said, reducing stigma but also fuelling misunderstanding: “If you’re just simply exhausted, that’s not burnout.”

Control and Support

Brough said the daily grind of minor stresses, workplace hassles and red tape is a key predictor of occupational stress, “not necessarily burnout.” “It’s often the workplace hassles which just eat away at you because they’re daily,” she said. Established workload factors include extended long hours, a lack of resources or support, and little control over work. Workers often can’t choose their shifts, colleagues or hospital ward.

The fix, she said, partly rests with employers. Ideally, they’d offset workload with more support or independence. “You can have a high workload, but if you also have high levels of support and control, it doesn’t necessarily equate to levels of stress or burnout,” she said.

Chan said organisations should closely examine the processes and systems people work within. “The leaders and organisation have the responsibility to create the right type of environment, but then people also need to speak up when something isn’t right or they need certain support,” he said. Brough said workers and employers “have a joint responsibility to look after your mental health.”

Why This Matters:

If burnout tracks closely with clunky systems, unclear expectations and insecure work, then it’s a workplace design problem, not a personal weakness. That reframing matters. It shifts attention from telling exhausted workers to cope better toward asking what employers can change. The gap—68 per cent burnout among insecure workers and 20 per cent among secure ones—suggests stability itself offers protection. Researchers caution that the sample is small and the industries unknown, so the findings are a signal rather than a verdict. Still, Sharma’s experience—cutting hours and leaving traditional employment despite the financial hit—shows who pays when workplaces don’t adapt. Not every worker can make that trade.