If your business employs younger people, then the changing patterns of mental health data suggest you may need to think differently about how you manage this emerging and challenging risk factor.

Unfortunately, over the last few years the mental health of Australians and Aussie workforces has become more challenging to manage.

Since 2010, across the general community, there has been an 81% increase with females and 51% increase with males being admitted to hospital for an overnight stay for mental health reasons. This is in the age group of 12-24 years of age.

In addition, young Australian adults continue to report high or very high psychological distress. This applies to 35% of females and 20% of males aged 16-24 years.

When we compare our Aussie workforce data to the general trends, they are not too dissimilar but offer a greater insight into what specific risks there are in the workplace related to levels of depression, anxiety and stress.

16-19 years

• 71% of females were in the high risk zones for depression, anxiety and stress  
• 0% of males were in the high risk zones  

20-29 years

• 11-41% of females were in the high-risk zones for depression, anxiety and stress    with anxiety by far the dominant response.  
• 2-10% of males were in the high-risk zones.  

30-39 years

• 50-62% of females were in the high-risk zones for depression, anxiety and stress  
• 10-20% of males were in the high-risk zones. 

High risk zones with our data indicates a referral for specialised follow up. 

The data suggest there is a real risk factor within the community as well as the workplace. It must be managed. We would be happy to speak with you about how you could implement different approaches to mitigate these risk factors.