Are your Gen Z employees struggling more or just saying so more?

The data from those workers own perception tells a different story. Seventy-four percent of Gen Z employees said they had needed to take time off work due to stress in the past year, but only 43 percent actually did, according to Deloitte’s 2025 global survey of more than 23,000 respondents. Peak burnout now hits Gen Z workers at 25, compared with 40 for older generations. Only 23 percent of Gen Z adults rate their mental health as “excellent,” against 31 percent of Gen X and 39 percent of Baby Boomers, according to Gallup’s 2025 data. That figure has declined by roughly 15 points since the pandemic began.

Mental health-related absences have increased approximately 33 percent since 2020, with workers aged 18 to 34 accounting for a disproportionate share of that rise.

John Burn-Murdoch, the Financial Times’s chief data reporter, published an analysis this week that offers a way to understand why neither account is wrong — and why most workplace mental health programs are failing to close the gap between them.

A Diverging Signal

Working across American, British and international data, Mr. Burn-Murdoch found that the share of young people reporting a mental health problem has risen sharply over the past decade. The share who say that condition limits their day-to-day functioning has barely moved.

In England, one measure has risen steeply while the other stayed nearly flat. He found the same divergence in United States data.