Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

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STRESS FACTORS AND CONFLICTS
In this chapter, we will find out how working people have assessed changes in
stress at work in recent years. To begin with, we will take a look at the change
in intensity of work in the respondents' own jobs. We will then investigate,
too, whether the working tempo has changed more generally at the workplaces.
After that, we will examine the change in mental and physical stressfulness
in the respondents' own jobs. The chapter also makes a short excursion
into occupational safety matters - that is, we will study changes in work safety
at the respondents' workplaces. To finish with, conflicts that respondents have
experienced at their workplaces are examined.
WORK INTENSITY
In the previous working life barometer for the Baltic countries, the work intensity
in Lithuania was strikingly different compared with Latvia and Estonia. In
1998, the Lithuanians could be divided into three approximately equal-sized
groups: those whose work was too intensive; those whose work intensity was
suitable; and those for whom it was too low. In Estonia and Latvia the intensity
of work, taken as a whole, was much greater than in Lithuania.
A little over three years later, the matter was enquired about in the same way.
The differences between the countries had now become much smaller. At the
beginning of 2002, more than one-fifth (22-24 %) of the working people in all
the Baltic nations said that there was still definitely room for the work intensity
to be stepped up - in other words the intensity of these respondents' work
was, in their own opinion, too low.
In Lithuania, the intensity of working life has clearly increased during the last
few years. As has been mentioned, in the previous survey about one-third (34
%) of the workers had felt that the work intensity was too low; but in the present
study, only fewer than one-quarter (23 %) thought that way. At the same
time, the proportion who felt that the work intensity was too high had risen
from 34 to 43 per cent. The change has indeed been the greatest in Lithuania.