Burnout affected 45.6% of health workers often or very often in 2022, according to the CDC’s Vital Signs analysis. The same report found worsening sleep, staffing, harassment, and job-search indicators compared with 2018. More recent AMA figures show that 41.9% of physicians reported at least one burnout symptom in 2025, while rates varied substantially by specialty.
Contents
- Key healthcare worker burnout statistics
- How burnout changed from 2018 to 2022
- Workplace conditions and burnout
- Harassment, mental health, and presenteeism
- Physician burnout by specialty in 2025
- Residents and physician job experience
Key healthcare worker burnout statistics
The CDC Vital Signs figures below describe health workers in 2022 and, where stated, compare them with 2018. These are survey results for the periods named; they are not a forecast of future burnout.
- 45.6% of health workers reported feeling burned out often or very often in 2022.
- 26.6% often felt burned out in 2022, compared with 20.3% in 2018.
- 33.5% sometimes felt burned out in 2022, compared with 36.0% in 2018.
- 57.0% screened positive for anxiety symptoms in 2022.
- 34.4% screened positive for depression symptoms in 2022.
- Health workers reported 4.5 mean days of poor mental health in the previous 30 days in 2022, up from 3.3 days in 2018.
- 27.9% reported presenteeism, meaning they worked while physically ill during the prior three months.
- 26.7% often had sleep problems in 2022, up from 21.1% in 2018.
The CDC also reported that 14.1% of health workers said they were not too happy in 2022, compared with 12.8% in 2018. The share who said they were very happy fell to 29.7% in 2022 from 32.0% in 2018. These wellbeing measures sit alongside, but are not interchangeable with, the report’s burnout measure.
How burnout changed from 2018 to 2022
Several indicators moved in an unfavorable direction during the CDC comparison period. The share who felt burnout very often rose from 11.6% in 2018 to 19.0% in 2022. The percentage very likely to look for a new job increased from 11.1% to 16.5%, and 44.2% in 2022 were somewhat likely or very likely to look for a new job with another employer.
The staffing picture also worsened. The share saying there were often not enough staff members increased from 25.7% in 2018 to 32.0% in 2022. At the same time, the share saying they had enough time to get the job done was 48.0% in 2022, nearly unchanged from 48.2% in 2018. That combination matters: the time measure did not materially improve even as reports of insufficient staffing became more common.
| CDC health worker measure | 2018 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Felt burnout very often | 11.6% | 19.0% |
| Very likely to look for a new job | 11.1% | 16.5% |
| Often not enough staff members | 25.7% | 32.0% |
| Had enough time to get the job done | 48.2% | 48.0% |
| Often had sleep problems | 21.1% | 26.7% |
| Very happy | 32.0% | 29.7% |
Workplace support measures also declined in their strongest response categories. Strong agreement that workplace conditions supported productivity fell from 30.4% in 2018 to 16.2% in 2022. Strong agreement that workers trusted management fell from 28.8% to 21.8%, while the share saying their supervisor was very helpful declined from 58.7% to 51.8%.
The broader 2022 response was more positive than the strongest-agreement figures alone suggest: 81.5% agreed or strongly agreed that workplace conditions supported productivity, and 78.2% agreed or strongly agreed that they trusted management. The CDC reported a good psychosocial safety climate for 72.9% of health workers in 2022. A poor climate was reported by 9.0%; the 2018 comparison was shown as 0% because the item was new in 2022, so that figure should not be treated as a like-for-like trend.
Workplace conditions and burnout
The CDC analysis associated specific workplace experiences with different burnout odds. These are odds ratios, not percentage-point changes or guarantees for an individual worker.
- Workers with a good psychosocial safety climate had burnout odds of 0.24 compared with workers with a poor climate.
- Workers with a moderate psychosocial safety climate had burnout odds of 0.35 compared with workers with a poor climate.
- Workers who trusted management had burnout odds of 0.40 compared with those who did not trust management.
- Workers whose supervisor helped them had burnout odds of 0.26 compared with those without supervisor help.
- Workers who felt they had enough time to complete their work had burnout odds of 0.33 compared with those who did not.
- Workers who said workplace conditions supported productivity had burnout odds of 0.38 compared with those who disagreed.
The corresponding 2022 outcome percentages show the same pattern. Burnout was reported by 76.3% of workers in a poor psychosocial safety climate, compared with 43.3% in a good climate. Among workers who did not trust management, 64.7% reported burnout, compared with 42.4% among those who did trust management.
Supervisor support showed a similar difference: 73.3% of workers who said supervisor help was not true reported burnout, compared with 41.8% who said it was true. Burnout was reported by 69.9% of workers who said they did not have enough time to get the job done, compared with 43.1% who said they did.
Productivity and staffing were also associated with different burnout levels. Among workers who disagreed that conditions supported productivity, 66.7% reported burnout, compared with 43.0% who agreed. Where workers said there were sometimes or often not enough staff, 54.9% reported burnout, compared with 30.9% where insufficient staffing was never or rarely reported.
Harassment, mental health, and presenteeism
Harassment was another major difference in the CDC results. The share of health workers reporting harassment at work rose from 6.4% in 2018 to 13.4% in 2022. In 2022, 80.6% of workers who reported harassment also reported burnout, compared with 41.7% of workers who were not harassed.
Harassment was associated with higher reported anxiety and depression as well. Anxiety symptoms were reported by 84.9% of harassed workers and 52.8% of workers not harassed. Depression symptoms were reported by 59.8% of harassed workers, compared with 30.6% of those not harassed.
The CDC reported odds ratios of 5.83 for burnout, 5.01 for anxiety, and 3.38 for depression when comparing workers harassed at work with those not harassed. These associations describe the report’s comparison and should not be read as proof that one isolated workplace event determines an individual’s outcome.
Other workplace comparisons involved anxiety and depression. Anxiety symptoms were reported by 65.2% of workers in a poor psychosocial safety climate, compared with 54.6% in a good climate. Among workers without enough time to get the job done, 63.0% reported anxiety symptoms, compared with 56.0% among those who said they had enough time. Anxiety was reported by 61.3% of workers who said staffing was sometimes or often insufficient, compared with 45.3% where it was never or rarely insufficient.
Depression symptoms were reported by 50.0% of workers who disagreed that conditions supported productivity, compared with 31.2% who agreed. The CDC also found that workers who took part in decisions had depression odds of 0.56 compared with those who never or rarely took part.
Physician burnout by specialty in 2025
The AMA physician burnout report published in 2026 measured physician burnout in 2025. It found that 41.9% of physicians reported at least one symptom of burnout, down from 43.2% in 2024 and 48.2% in 2023. The specialty figures below are 2025 results, not projections.
| Specialty or group | Burnout in 2025 |
|---|---|
| Emergency medicine | 49.8% |
| Urological surgery | 49.5% |
| Hematology/oncology | 49.3% |
| Obstetrics and gynecology | 45.7% |
| Radiology | 45.2% |
| Family medicine | 45.0% |
| General surgery | 43.8% |
| Cardiology | 43.5% |
| Gastroenterology | 43.5% |
| Anesthesiology | 39.2% |
| Dermatology | 31.5% |
| Psychiatry | 31.6% |
| Nephrology | 29.3% |
| Infectious diseases | 23.3% |
Emergency medicine had the highest listed specialty rate at 49.8%. Infectious diseases had the lowest listed rate at 23.3%. The spread between those two listed specialties was 26.5 percentage points. The AMA figures are specific to physicians and should not be substituted for the broader CDC health-worker estimates.
The AMA report also found that 56.2% of physicians felt valued by their organization to a great or moderate extent. Female physicians reported feeling valued at 53.3%, compared with 59.6% for male physicians. Physicians in their first one to five years of practice reported feeling valued at 57.9%, compared with 59.4% for physicians more than 20 years into practice.
Residents and physician job experience
The 2024 AMA resident report, published in 2025, found resident burnout at 34.5%, down 8% from 2023. Female residents reported burnout symptoms at 40.2%, compared with 27.8% for male residents. Among major resident specialties, pediatrics had the lowest reported burnout at 33.5%, while family medicine residents reported 45.5% and obstetrics and gynecology residents reported 45.4%.
The resident report identified administrative tasks as a stressor for 32.6% of residents and schedule-related concerns as a stressor for 26.1%. These are reported stressor shares, not estimates of the percentage who experienced burnout because of those factors.
Job satisfaction varied in the AMA 2025 physician report. Psychiatry had the highest reported job satisfaction at 83.0%, obstetrics and gynecology had 81.2%, and hospital-based specialties had the lowest reported job satisfaction at 74.8%. Satisfaction and burnout measure different aspects of work experience, so these percentages should be considered alongside, rather than combined with, the burnout rates.
Sources and measurement notes
The CDC figures in this article are labeled CDC MMWR Vital Signs 2023 and refer primarily to health-worker survey measures from 2018 and 2022. The AMA physician figures are labeled AMA physician burnout report 2026 and describe 2025 results; the resident figures are labeled AMA resident burnout report 2025 and describe 2024 results. Because the supplied source record identifies the research as legacy material and not independently verified, the source labels and measurement periods are retained as published context rather than presented as a new verification.