BBC News Online: Business

Work-related stress soars

Stress is recognised as an 'industrial disease' says TUC

New cases linked to stress increased by 6,428 last year, the annual survey by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has found.

Compensation awards won by unions last year were worth £321m, slightly more than the previous year.

"Stress related illnesses have become a reality.

"These figures that the TUC has found are a wake-up call for managers everywhere," he said.

Waste of money

But he said he did not believe that the high pay-outs reflected a "compensation culture."

"Overall union compensation cases aren't increasing," he said.

He said public sector staff were most likely to claim work-related stress but there were also claims from middle managers in manufacturing.

"Stress shouldn't be part of anybody's job, certainly not to the extent that it causes real physical or mental illnesses," he said.

He accepted compensation claims were an "enormous waste of money" for employers.

And he called on employers to "do the right thing by their workforce" by preventing stress-related illnesses by assessing risks and adapting jobs to workers rather than workers to jobs.

The survey also found that the number of new personal injury claims was slightly down, but still totalled more than 51,000.

TUC general secretary John Monks said: "Good management is the solution, and good management means working in partnership with unions."