48% Have Left a Job for Mental Health Reasons — The 2025 Workplace Mental Health Report
- National survey: 48% of employees report leaving a job at least partly for mental health reasons — up from 42% in 2021
- 46% fear disclosing mental health challenges at work, despite 91% of employers claiming they support mental health
- Gap between employer programmes and actual prevention: most workplace mental health initiatives focus on treatment access, not on modifying the work conditions that cause distress
- Younger workers (Gen Z, millennials) report highest rates of mental health impact on work performance but also highest willingness to seek help
Nearly half of employees have left a job because of mental health. Not because they could not get therapy — because the job was the problem. Mind Share Partners' 2025 report quantifies what clinicians hear every day in sessions: work is not just a context for mental health, it is a primary determinant.
The disclosure gap
The most striking finding: 46% fear disclosure while 91% of employers say they support mental health. This is not a contradiction — it is a trust deficit. Employees distinguish between what the company says and what happens when you actually tell your manager you are struggling. The gap is the space where stigma lives.
For clinicians, this data validates a clinical pattern. Patients who present with anxiety, depression, or burnout often hesitate to address workplace factors because they believe disclosure will damage their career. The data confirms they may be right.
Prevention vs treatment
Most corporate mental health programmes are benefit programmes — EAP access, therapy app subscriptions, mental health days. These are treatment responses. The report argues that effective workplace mental health requires modifying the work itself: manageable workloads, autonomy, clear expectations, psychological safety, and leadership modelling.
For organisational psychologists and consultants: this report provides the data to shift conversations from "what benefits do we offer?" to "what about our work design is causing distress?"
48% have left a job for mental health reasons, yet 46% fear disclosing at work — the gap between employer programmes and actual workplace safety is where stigma operates.
US-focused survey. Self-report data subject to recall bias. "Left for mental health reasons" includes partial attribution — mental health may have been one of several factors.