Stress Reliever
A group of office workers chat whilst sitting on a chair as mist from a nearby artwork piece surrounds them in the centre of the city of Sydney March 29, 2001. The mist rises up through the ground every 15 minutes and is intended to ease people's stress levels as they go to and from their workplace. Reuters

With full-time jobs dwindling in Australia and total personal debt at a record-high $1.45 trillion, many Australians feel financially stressed. A new research says the number of Aussies who feel confident about their finances dipped to 48 percent from 54 percent in 2014.

Of the 2,000 Australian employees surveyed by Kantar TNS for AMP’s 2016 Financial Wellness Report, about 25 percent, or one in four are financially stressed. When stressed, some of them go on leave and consume an average of four more sick days annually, while losing about 6.9 hours a week of productive time at work despite physically in their work station, Sydney Morning Herald reports.

About half of the workers point to bad debt as the reason for their financial stress, followed by saving for retirement (35 percent) and providing for their family (34 percent). More female than males suffer financial stress.

By city, the highest level of stress are experienced by Brisbane employees (30 percent), followed by those in Adelaide (25 percent), Perth (23 percent), Sydney (20 percent) and Melbourne (19 percent). It appears the Melbourne residents are managing their finances better since financial stress levels in the city declined dramatically from 32 percent in 2014.

Vicki Doyle, AMP director of corporate superannuation, said the lower rate of financial stress in Melbourne reflects the value of tourism and hospitality industries in Queensland. She adds stress was felt more among workers in the accommodation and food services industries, then in the health care, social assistance and administrative support sectors. The worse was in mining where the financial stress level leapfrogged to 26 percent, or almost thrice the 9 percent in just two years as the commodity boom weakened globally, Perthnow reports.

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