Burnout rates and costs by industry: 2026 data for eight sectors
Burnout doesn't affect industries equally. The rates below combine Eagle Hill 2025 (cross-sector), Gallup workforce panels, ANA & AMA clinician surveys, and sector-specific 2025-2026 reporting. They are point-in-time baselines, not trend measurements. Cost estimates assume 100 employees at $80K average fully-loaded salary; scale up using the calculator.
01 / Sector ledger
USD per 100 employees, $80K avg salary
| Industry | Burnout rate | Est. cost / 100 employees | Leading drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal servicesHighest | 44% | $1.82M | Billable-hour pressure / Adversarial work / Up-or-out partnership tracks |
| HealthcareMost acute | 42% | $1.73M | Staffing shortages / Emotional labour / Long rotating shifts |
| TechnologyKnowledge-work | 40% | $1.65M | Always-on culture / Remote boundary erosion / Layoff cycles |
| Finance & banking | 38% | $1.57M | Bonus-season cycles / Regulatory pressure / High-stakes decisions |
| Education | 36% | $1.49M | Out-of-hours workload / Resource constraints / Student welfare load |
| Retail & hospitality | 32% | $1.32M | Shift volatility / Customer-facing stress / Wage-to-cost-of-living gap |
| Manufacturing | 30% | $1.24M | Shift work fatigue / Physical demands / Safety risk under fatigue |
| Government & public sector | 30% | $1.24M | Resource constraints / Bureaucratic friction / Public scrutiny |
02 / Sector deep dive
Notes & sources
Legal services
44%~$1.82M / 100 employees
- Billable-hour pressure
- Adversarial work
- Up-or-out partnership tracks
Highest burnout of any white-collar sector. The ABA 2024 well-being survey found attorneys feel burned out about 42% of the time on average, peaking at 51% for mid-to-senior associates.
Healthcare
42%~$1.73M / 100 employees
- Staffing shortages
- Emotional labour
- Long rotating shifts
The average hospital loses $4.2M-$6.2M a year to RN turnover, about $60,090 per nurse (NSI 2026). HRSA projects the national RN shortage to peak near 10% in 2027.
Technology
40%~$1.65M / 100 employees
- Always-on culture
- Remote boundary erosion
- Layoff cycles
Yerbo's State of Burnout in Tech survey of 36,200 IT professionals found 62% feel physically and emotionally drained at the end of the workday; engineering teams are among the worst affected.
Finance & banking
38%~$1.57M / 100 employees
- Bonus-season cycles
- Regulatory pressure
- High-stakes decisions
Investment banking and trading roles spike well above sector average during deal cycles. Audit burnout peaks Q1.
Education
36%~$1.49M / 100 employees
- Out-of-hours workload
- Resource constraints
- Student welfare load
RAND Education 2024 reports US teachers twice as likely to be burned out as the general workforce.
Retail & hospitality
32%~$1.32M / 100 employees
- Shift volatility
- Customer-facing stress
- Wage-to-cost-of-living gap
Frontline shift work carries the most volatile exposure of any sector here. Holiday seasons amplify it further.
Manufacturing
30%~$1.24M / 100 employees
- Shift work fatigue
- Physical demands
- Safety risk under fatigue
Burnout correlates directly with safety incidents in manufacturing settings. Compounds workers comp and downtime exposure.
Government & public sector
30%~$1.24M / 100 employees
- Resource constraints
- Bureaucratic friction
- Public scrutiny
Lower headline rate than private sector, but presenteeism share runs high due to civil service tenure dynamics.
03 / Sector calculator
Estimate exposure for your sector
Pre-loaded with technology defaults. Switch the industry dropdown to apply the baseline rate for legal, healthcare, finance, or any other sector.
Total annual exposure
$6,119,327
Sum of presenteeism, absenteeism, turnover and healthcare uplift
Per affected employee
$61,193
AJPM 2025 reference range: $4K hourly to $20.7K executive
02 / Hidden cost split (AJPM 2025)
91%comes from presenteeism
Showing up under-performing, not calling in sick. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine (Feb 2025) found 89% of burnout cost is invisible on attendance reports. Most HR dashboards miss it.
91%
9%
03 / Cost components
USD / year
Turnover & replacement
$4,631,250
76% of total
Gallup: 2.6x leave probability, 125% replacement cost
Productivity reduction
$1,235,000
20% of total
Gallup: 13% effective output deficit
Healthcare uplift
$161,000
3% of total
Gallup: 23% higher ER use
Absenteeism
$92,077
2% of total
Gallup: 63% more sick days
04 / Maslach Burnout Inventory dimensions
Heuristic, 0-100
Emotional and physical depletion. The leading indicator.
Depersonalisation and disengagement. Rises with chronic exposure.
Reduced sense of accomplishment. The most expensive dimension to recover.
Modelled from observed burnout rate using the Maslach & Leiter three-dimension framework. For a clinical assessment, use the licensed MBI instrument with your EAP.
05 / Next step
Translate $6.12M into a CFO-ready brief
We help mid-market HR teams quantify burnout exposure, identify the top three drivers, and present a 90-day mitigation plan. Free initial teardown.
04 / Direction of travel
What the longitudinal data actually shows
No published survey tracks burnout by sector on a consistent instrument year over year, so we do not publish per-sector trend lines. What is tracked consistently is the US workforce as a whole, and its shape is not the one usually assumed.
- Aug 202058%Eagle Hill surveyPandemic peak, the highest wave Eagle Hill has recorded.
- Aug 202249%Eagle Hill surveyNine points off the peak as pandemic disruption eased.
- Feb 202346%Eagle Hill surveyDecline continues.
- Aug 202345%Eagle Hill surveyLow point of the series.
- Feb 202445%Eagle Hill surveyFlat year on year; the decline stalls.
- Nov 202555%Eagle Hill surveyTen-point jump, back near the 2020 high.
Headline US rate from each Eagle Hill Consulting Workforce Burnout Survey release, labelled by fieldwork month. Sector-level claims on this page are point-in-time readings from the named source, not trend measurements.
05 / FAQ
Sector questions
Which industry has the highest burnout rate?
Which industry has the highest burnout rate?
Among white-collar sectors, legal services consistently report the highest burnout rates, around 44%, driven by billable-hour pressure and adversarial work. Healthcare follows closely, at 42-57% in clinical roles, with nurse and physician burnout the most acute. Technology sits at 38-40%, with always-on culture and remote-work boundary erosion as the leading drivers.
How much does nurse burnout cost the US health system?
How much does nurse burnout cost the US health system?
The NSI 2026 National Health Care Retention Report puts the average cost of losing one bedside RN at about $60,090, with the typical hospital losing $4.2 million to $6.2 million a year to RN turnover before productivity, patient-safety, and locum coverage costs. HRSA projects the national registered-nurse shortage to peak near 10% in 2027.
Why is teacher burnout so high?
Why is teacher burnout so high?
Education burnout sits at around 36% on this site's sector baseline. RAND Education's 2024 survey found US teachers report burnout at roughly twice the rate of the general working population. The drivers are workload that extends well beyond classroom hours, administrative burden, resource constraints, and the emotional demands of supporting vulnerable students. No survey tracks teacher burnout on a consistent instrument back to 2020, so we do not state a trend figure.
Is finance a high-burnout industry?
Is finance a high-burnout industry?
Yes. Banking and finance report burnout at around 38%, with investment banking, trading, and audit roles substantially higher during peak cycles. Bonus season correlates strongly with burnout severity in surveys.