Employees’ Financial Stress Costing Employers

Canadians are financially stressed and this stress is having an impact on their job performance, costing employers more than ever, says research from the National Payroll Institute. The research says that workers worrying about their finances on the job will cost Canadian employers more than $40 billion in 2022. Even more shocking is that this figure has exploded significantly since 2021, when it was calculated that financial stress in the workplace accounted for $26.9 billion in lost productivity. The accelerated growth is the result of several factors, but is rooted in the worsening individual financial situation of working Canadians this year. The research, coupled with a cluster analysis from the Financial Wellness Lab of Canada (the Lab), shows a steep decline in the financial wellness of workers across Canada. Not only did the financially comfortable cluster shrink by 10 per cent when compared to 2021, but key behavioural indicators have been shown to be determinative of financial wellness – specifically saving, spending, and debt utilization – indicate that the downward trend is likely to continue. This financial strain amongst employees is bleeding into the workplace. Seventy-two per cent of working Canadians spend at least some of their workday actively dealing with or thinking about their personal financial matters (up from 68 per cent in 2021). One in five working Canadians are aware that stress related to their finances has directly impacted their workplace performance. Among the stressed cluster, this number was 46 per cent, up from 39 per cent in 2021.