The mental and physical health of workers, burnout syndrome (burn, in English), work environment as well as topic virtual and hybrid work These are the main challenges that need to be solved in the Ecuadorian labor market, according to a survey conducted by the consulting company AON Internacional.

Labor Day is celebrated in Ecuador amid a gradual recovery of labor indicators (more adequate employment and lower unemployment in the first quarter of 2023); however, those who have a job go through a series of problems that threaten their well-being and productivity. Among them are phenomena such as “big resignations” and “quiet resignations”, which appear immediately after the pandemic, as a paradigm shift in the vision of workers.

In an event called Data & Analytics for Comprehensive Human Talent Health and Wellbeing Management, AON International presented data from eight countries in the region: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico and the main issues that exist to create the well-being of its employees.

When companies ask what are the main problems or challenges to generate well-being for their employees, both globally and regionally, they also say that mental health and professional burnout are among the main problems.

In addition, AON reveals that 82% of companies globally are concerned about the “high attrition effect” – how talent is retained and found. 50% of companies globally have decided to work on the mental and physical health of their workers. 42% of companies consider flexibility, related to remote and hybrid work, as an extremely effective tool for attracting and retaining human talent.

A few weeks ago, the Multitrabajos platform revealed that 4 out of 10 Ecuadorians suffer from a phenomenon called “silent resignation”. That’s luck burnout that prompts workers to give the minimum required. According to Multitrabajos data, 43% of Ecuadorian workers are affected by this phenomenon, which is called silent resignation. On the other hand, 57% of Ecuadorians believe that they do their best at work. Another question in the survey shows that 69% of respondents in the country do not believe that they are valued in their workplace.

What are quiet resignation and big resignation?

It is a phenomenon that goes through all those workers who, despite some disagreements, do not think about leaving their job and remain at their workplace, fulfilling fair and necessary goals, without extending the working day and without performing tasks that are not absolutely necessary. They feel that there is no incentive to do their best because their work is not recognized and there is no expectation of improvement. This new trend differs from the mass resignation, which occurred in 2021, after the pandemic, but with a central difference: the mass resignation is a phenomenon that implies, in case of certain disagreements, leaving the job and looking for a new one. .

Which is ranking countries by silent resignation?

How long have these workers felt this way in Ecuador?

44% answered that it was more than a year ago, 21% less than six months ago, 18% less than a year ago, 9% could not specify, and the other 8% more than six months ago.

Returning to AON’s research, another element of global anxiety is the impact of inflation on worker welfare. In the region, inflation indicators skyrocketed, for example in Argentina (71%) and Brazil (10%). However, in Ecuador, which has a dollarized economy, monthly inflation in March was 0.06% and annual inflation (March 2022 to March 2023) was 2.85%, so it is not a concern.

Globally, the trend of medical costs in the region is in a slight decline. If in 2022 in Ecuador the average medical costs in gross percentages amounted to 15.4%, in 2023 they amounted to 13%. And in the region last year it recorded 11.6%, and this year it was 10.6%.

On this topic, the former executive president of the Chamber of Industry and Production (CIP) Pablo Zambrano believes that one of the main concerns of the private sector is labor legislation, which he describes as inflexible. “Barely three out of ten people of working age have an official job in Ecuador, and this inflexibility creates disincentives when hiring new associates. It is a big limitation to create new modalities of work, in accordance with the time in which we live”.

Zambrano agrees that after the legal framework, the challenges lie in the difficulty of retaining talent, which leads to constant turnover that weakens productivity.

In any case, AON believes that it is possible for companies to work on these challenges and for this it gives ten tips that can help improve the working environment and retain their talents. These are:

The National Institute for Statistics and Censuses (INEC) published the latest quarterly results on the labor market this Friday. Unemployment in Ecuador has statistically significantly decreased, from 424,826 unemployed citizens in the first quarter of 2022 to 324,904 in the first quarter of 2023. The figures represent a decrease from 5% to 3.8%.

On the other hand, adequate employment (work of at least 40 hours per week and earnings of at least the basic wage) in Ecuador was located in the first quarter of 2023 (January to March) at 2,967,972, an increase of two percentage points, that indicator (34.9%) compared to 2022. However, the informality of work increased from 51.1% in the first quarter of 2022 to 53.5% in the first quarter of 2023 (I)