Work Stress Rears Its Ugle Head, Again

We are losing young Indians at an alarming rate

The story so far: Anna Sebastian, a 26-year old CA working at Ernst and Young died. Her mother said that the work stress was too much for her body and it just gave up. EY responded with a braindead reply.

Dying Young

Saurabh Kumar Laddha worked at McKinsey.

Anna Sebastian worked at Ernst & Young.

Pavithran worked for a delivery app.

These three names should be etched in the memory of every Indian today. The three of them were 25, 26 and 19 years old respectively. All of them are victims of work stress in India. They died because they couldn’t handle the pressures of the workspace.

Saurabh jumped from the 9th floor of his building in Ahmedabad because work became too much. Anna’s body gave up, according to her mother, who wrote a letter to Raj Memani, EY Chairman. And then there was Pavithran. Saurabh was an IIT-IIM graduate, while Anna was a CA.

Pavithran didn’t have the pedigree of the other youngsters. He was too young to have made it in life. But he could have. He was 19 and working because his family needed the money. He was also studying for a B.Com degree. On 11 September 2024, he had a delivery in Chennai’s Korattur area. It took him some time to find the location of a house he had to deliver to. Since he was delayed, the customer yelled at him and filed an official complaint against him.

On 13 September, Pavithran threw a stone at the customer’s residence, breaking a window. The customer then lodged a police complaint against him. Since he was young and this was a first offence, the police let him go with a warning. On 18 September, Pavithran took his life. His note said, “I went into depression after being scolded by the person during the delivery. More deaths will occur as long as such women exist.”

India is facing a severe problem of workplace stress. The pressure to constantly be on call for any job, be it a doctor or engineer or a finance or media professional, is immense. While 10- 12 working-hour days are normal across sectors and companies, people are frowned upon when they leave at 6 PM after a whole day’s work.

Indians Are Burning Out

Healthcare platform MediBuddy, along with CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), released a report, 'Mapping India's Corporate Health and Wellness Landscape', in July 2024. The report said that around 62% of Indians experience burnout, compared to the global average of 20%. The major reasons are work stress and poor work-life balance.

An ILO (International Labour Organization) report says India is the second most overworked country globally. 51% of the country’s workforce works 49 or more hours per week.

And all of this work is leading to an increasing number of deaths. Apart from deaths due to stress, which gets highlighted in the media, heart attacks and cardiac arrests are becoming more common. A decade ago, most heart attacks occurred in people over the age of 50. Today, 1 out of 5 heart attacks occur among people below 40. People in corporate jobs live sedentary lifestyles. Most of their time is spent behind a desk. Weight gain, a decline in cardiovascular fitness, and unhealthy coping mechanisms (eating junk food, not exercising, sleeping too little, alcohol and cigarettes, binge-watching shows) cause more heart attacks.

Gig Economy

If you thought sitting behind a desk was terrible, being out on the road is worse. The success of quick commerce has caused companies like Swiggy, Zomato, Big Basket, Zepto, etc., to hire lakhs of people as delivery riders. They are not treated as employees but as gig workers. This means a lot of benefits like insurance and access to HR (which is a joke that will be explained another day) that people like us take for granted are denied to them.

We had reported on how Swiggy canceled its riders’ health insurance if they didn’t meet weekly quotas. You get health insurance if you make a certain number of deliveries daily. But if you missed that quota even for a week, your health insurance would get halved. Why do delivery riders miss that quota? Generally because they were unwell or taking care of unwell family members. The irony is mind-boggling!

India’s Labour Laws

The new labour laws in India are the Code on Wages, Social Security, Industrial Relations Code, and the Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code (OSHWC). They sound good on paper but will they be implemented? And who will force their implementation?

We live in a country where governments, centre and state, have not proven that they value human lives. The onus is on employees and workers to take a stand. But in a country like India, where unemployment is sky-high, and there are always people looking for a job, it is unlikely that the situation is going to change.

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So long!

Team Reading Room