Countries by Job Strain
Complete ranking of 35 countries • Percentage of employees • Updated 2026
About Job Strain Rankings
Greece leads all 35 countries in Job Strain with a value of 47.937, while Norway ranks last at 13.83. This represents a 3-fold difference between the highest and lowest values.
What Job Strain Measures
Job Strain is a comparative indicator tracked across countries by the OECD. It provides a quantitative basis for cross-national comparison, enabling researchers and policymakers to benchmark national performance on this dimension against global peers.
Why This Ranking Matters
Examining Job Strain across all countries reveals patterns that might not be obvious at the national level. Regional clusters, outlier nations, and historical trajectories all become clearer when the full global picture is assembled in a single ranking.
Global Range
Values range from 13.83 (Norway) to 47.937 (Greece) — a 3-fold difference across 35 countries.
Regional Patterns
European countries dominate this ranking, holding 14 of the top 20 positions. This strong regional concentration suggests shared economic, geographic, or policy factors that drive higher values across the continent.
Values are broadly distributed across countries, with the middle 50% ranging from 23.564 to 31.161. The overall spread from 13.83 to 47.937 reflects significant global variation.
Notable Outliers
The top of the ranking is competitive: Greece and Turkey are separated by only 12%, indicating that the leading positions could shift with updated data.
Continental Leaders
Highest Ranked
The top five countries for Job Strain are Greece (47.937), Turkey (42.936), South Korea (38.688), Hungary (36.411), and Spain (35.014). Together, these nations represent the global leaders in this metric.
Lowest Ranked
At the other end of the spectrum, Norway (13.83), Finland (16.338), Denmark (18.191), United Kingdom (20.705), and New Zealand (21.64) have the lowest values globally.
Data Source & Methodology
Rankings are based on the latest available data from OECD, covering 35 of 249 countries and territories. Countries without data for this metric are excluded from the ranking. All values represent the most recently reported figures.
Top 10 Countries
Full Rankings
| Percentile | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st |  Greece | 47.9% | Europe | 100% |
| 2nd |  Turkey | 42.9% | Europe | 97% |
| 3rd |  South Korea | 38.7% | Asia | 94% |
| 4th |  Hungary | 36.4% | Europe | 91% |
| 5th |  Spain | 35.0% | Europe | 89% |
| 6th |  Portugal | 33.2% | Europe | 86% |
| 7th |  Slovakia | 32.0% | Europe | 83% |
| 8th |  Slovenia | 31.8% | Europe | 80% |
| 9th |  Japan | 31.2% | Asia | 77% |
| 10th |  Lithuania | 30.8% | Europe | 74% |
| 11th |  Latvia | 30.3% | Europe | 71% |
| 12th |  Canada | 30.1% | North America | 69% |
| 13th |  Poland | 30.0% | Europe | 66% |
| 14th |  Italy | 29.6% | Europe | 63% |
| 15th |  Mexico | 28.9% | North America | 60% |
| 16th |  Germany | 28.5% | Europe | 57% |
| 17th |  Austria | 28.5% | Europe | 54% |
| 18th |  Chile | 28.2% | South America | 51% |
| 19th |  United States | 25.8% | North America | 49% |
| 20th |  France | 25.8% | Europe | 46% |
| 21st |  Belgium | 25.8% | Europe | 43% |
| 22nd |  Australia | 25.6% | Oceania | 40% |
| 23rd |  Czechia | 25.4% | Europe | 37% |
| 24th |  Israel | 25.1% | Asia | 34% |
| 25th |  Ireland | 23.9% | Europe | 31% |
| 26th |  Iceland | 23.8% | Europe | 29% |
| 27th |  Sweden | 23.6% | Europe | 26% |
| 28th |  Netherlands | 23.4% | Europe | 23% |
| 29th |  Luxembourg | 23.1% | Europe | 20% |
| 30th |  Estonia | 23.0% | Europe | 17% |
| 31st |  New Zealand | 21.6% | Oceania | 14% |
| 32nd |  United Kingdom | 20.7% | Europe | 11% |
| 33rd |  Denmark | 18.2% | Europe | 9% |
| 34th |  Finland | 16.3% | Europe | 6% |
| 35th |  Norway | 13.8% | Europe | 3% |