Gallup: Filipinos most stressed at workplace

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Philippine employees remain the most stressed workers in Southeast Asia, according to the latest report by global analytics firm Gallup Inc., as they are also the most psychologically attached to their work across the region.

In its State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, the Washington-based firm said 50 percent of Filipino workers experienced stress for much of the previous day, double the Southeast Asian average of 25 percent and well above the global average of 40 percent.

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READ: PH tops Southeast Asia in workplace stress – Gallup

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At the same time, the Philippines also posted the region’s highest levels of daily sadness at 31 percent and daily anger at 29 percent, both exceeding the regional averages of 21 percent and 19 percent, respectively. Only 34 percent of Filipinos believed they were “thriving.”

Despite these elevated levels of negative emotions, Gallup found that Filipino workers remained the most connected to their jobs among their Southeast Asian peers.

Thirty-nine percent of Filipino employees were classified as “engaged,” the highest in the region and well above the Southeast Asian average of 25 percent and the global average of 20 percent.

Gallup head of consulting Shruti Rastogi said the findings should not be viewed as contradictory, but rather as evidence that workplace commitment and personal strain can coexist.

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“I think they are two sides of the same coin,” Rastogi said in an interview with the Inquirer. “You care about the workplace and you want to do more.”

Attachment to work

Gallup defines employee engagement as the “psychological attachment workers have to their work, their team and their employer.” It measures this because stronger engagement has consistently been linked to higher productivity and business performance.

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Why, then, do Filipino workers remain deeply engaged despite reporting the region’s highest stress levels?

“There is this resilient spirit in Filipinos. And they care for what they actually do,” she said. “There is something in the fabric of the community, there is a thread that ties people to people—and that is genuine care.”

Stress, Rastogi added, can come from several sources, including work, finances, social networks, the environment, traffic and natural disasters. In the workplace, pressure can also come from employees who are highly committed, but face heavy expectations.

Gallup’s research likewise found that managers account for about 70 percent of the variance in how employees experience work on a day-to-day basis, meaning leadership quality is a major driver of both engagement and stress.

Globally, Gallup said employee engagement slipped for a second straight year to 20 percent in 2025—the lowest since 2020—largely because manager engagement fell to 22 percent from 27 percent a year earlier.

Undermining retention

Despite the resilience shown by Filipino workers, Gallup warned that persistently high stress could eventually undermine employee retention if organizations fail to support workers’ overall well-being.

In the Philippines, that risk is heightened by the country’s relatively upbeat labor market.

Gallup found that 76 percent of Filipino workers said it was a good time to find a job in 2025, higher than Indonesia’s 64 percent and Singapore’s 42 percent.

Kanika Singh, Gallup’s regional director, said job-market optimism often goes hand in hand with employee engagement because workers who see more opportunities are more confident they can find jobs better aligned with their skills.

Gallup also flagged a growing generational divide in its 2026 report.

Globally, workers aged 35 and below were generally more stressed and less engaged than older employees.

Apart from the pressures of starting their careers and adapting to older managers, Singh said the problem may also be structural.

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Gallup polled 263,810 respondents across 160 countries for the 2026 report.