Analyzing the Surge in Workplace Mental Health Leaves: Systemic Issues and Employer Solutions
For years, running was a stress reliever for Megan Hanzal.
But when the pandemic hit, the miles gave way to the suffocating confines of a house suddenly too small: with two parents working under one roof while caring for an 18-month-old toddler and a three-year-old, life was consumed by a triage of meeting calls and diapers, deadlines and tantrums.
When Hanzal returned to her Toronto-area office in 2022 as an accounting manager, she knew something was off. She was experiencing brain fog and often fell behind on work. Yet even as she voiced her struggles to managers, increasing demands piled onto her plate — until one day, the stress and exhaustion broke her.
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In August of 2022, Hanzal was hospitalized at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) for two weeks for depression and anxiety. After she was discharged, she was advised to take a mental health leave that ultimately lasted for nine months.
She returned to work in May 2023, but the transition did not work out as hoped. Hanzal soon joined another company, but her mental health deteriorated again, leading her to take a month-long leave in 2024.
“I began to understand that managing my mental health was not about working harder or being stronger,” she said. “It was about understanding myself and recognizing when I needed support.”
There has been a rise in the number of Canadian workers going on short-term disability leave of all kinds since the pandemic, and experts say an increase in mental health leave is largely responsible.
Before the pandemic hit, in 2019, about five out of every 100 workers were taking a short-term medical leave each year, with each leave lasting between one week and four months, according to Statistics Canada data analyzed by Peter Smith, president of the Institute for Work & Health.
After dipping slightly during the first two years of the pandemic, the rate rose sharply and reached its highest level in a decade in 2022-23. The increase amounted to about 210,000 more workers taking leave each week than in 2020-21, Smith estimated.
The number of new short-term disability claims, as measured by workplace benefits providers, showed a similar pattern, rising an average of 10 per cent annually between 2023 and 2025, according to Francis Boulianne, principal of group benefits at consulting firm Normandin Beaudry. That increase was driven primarily by mental health-related conditions, Boulianne said, adding that he could not recall seeing mental health-related claims at such high levels over the past five to 10 years.
In an attempt to get at the root of these absences, the Star spoke to workplace experts and eight employees who went on short-term leave. Has the workplace become more toxic? Have political and economic pressures pushed workers to a breaking point? Are younger workers more likely to take time off work when the going gets tough?
Their answers are complex and revealing. All of the people interviewed for this story agreed that employers must do more to prevent mental health struggles from becoming long-term absences. Meanwhile, corporations, which are growing increasingly alarmed about the increase in leave, are struggling with how to respond.
“There’s no immediate end in sight to all of the stressors. So one can assume that things will only get worse unless employers intervene and provide employees with support and tools,” said Michelle Ashworth, assistant vice-president of disability management at Aon.
“There’s a shared responsibility to make sure that we’re supporting the mental health of Canadians, and ultimately that drives productivity for the full economy.”
Pandemic aggravated mental health issues
Even before 2020, Sandra Ventin, area vice-president of Benefits Practice at Gallagher Benefits, said Canadian workplaces had already seen a steady worsening of short-term disability claims. But the pandemic “accentuated” the stressors, which include inflation, job insecurity, and geopolitical issues, she said.
According to a 2025 survey of 546 Canadian employers conducted by Gallagher, mental health was responsible for 65 per cent of short-term disability claims and 52 per cent of long-term disability claims.
“Never before have we seen mental health claims being in the top three,” she said. “Coming out of the pandemic, for most of our larger clients, mental health claims are now taking over from physiotherapy or chiropractic treatments.”
Some workers who have recently taken disability leave for mental health reasons say that, to this day, they are still reeling from the upheaval the pandemic brought to their industries and workplaces.
This spring, a Grade 3 and special education teacher in Northern Ontario who spoke to the Star was advised by her family doctor to take a month off after experiencing burnout at work, compounded by stress in her personal life.
The 45-year-old teacher said she felt “overwhelmed” by the soaring demands of her job since the pandemic. Online learning left students with significant learning gaps and more behavioural issues, she said, while teachers have been burdened with an increasing workload to track student progress.
“In 2022, I taught a Grade 2. I had chairs thrown at me. I was kicked and punched, and I had one student who would hop from desk to desk,” she said.
The Star is granting anonymity to her and four other workers who either took short-term disability leave themselves or saw employees go on leave, because they fear the personal information they shared could harm their careers.
“There literally are not enough minutes in a day to do everything that we are expected to do,” she said. “It’s a lot to manage.”
A Toronto employee in her mid-30s with a PhD in neuroscience told the Star she has experienced firsthand the tech industry’s rapid swing from pandemic-era expansion to widespread layoffs. Since graduating in 2020, she has held four jobs and weathered two major layoffs.
Years of mounting pressure and burnout led to three disability leaves, including the long-term leave she is currently on.
“There’s this very particular psychological terror in the tech industry about knowing that you could be laid off at any minute,” she said. “It just starts to induce this helplessness and depression, because no one can live like that.”
The worker said she also felt let down by the mental health-care system, waiting five years to see a psychiatrist while spending about $40,000 out of pocket on treatment.
The post-pandemic economic downturn has also tightened the purse strings of both employers and employees. Two workers who took short-term disability leave told the Star that stagnant wages, coupled with rising inflation and burnout, contributed to the deterioration of their mental health.
A manager of capital projects at the City of Toronto said that, over the past few years, three employees on her team — including two Iranian employees — either took leave or quit, citing mounting workplace stress and, for some, the emotional toll of the conflict in Iran.
The staffing levels on her team have not kept pace with the ballooning workloads as the city has slowed down hiring amid economic uncertainty.
“I personally try to calm my staff, (telling them) to do what they can, but a lot of them are just finding it too much, and a lot of them aren’t able to adapt to this sort of higher demand,” she said.
‘I felt devalued’
The pandemic also coincided with the entry of many Gen Z workers into the labour market — a generation that grew up amid more open discussions about mental health and has reported higher rates of anxiety and depression than the older generations, according to Mental Health Research Canada.
The rise in mental health-related leave is partly driven by demographic shifts and greater awareness of mental well-being in the workplace following the pandemic, said Olga Morawczynski, founder of Heal-3, a company that designs holistic mental health programs for organizations.
Morawczynski said young workers are not only most vocal about their mental health, but also have a high number of related claims. Moreover, they expect employers to take an active role in fostering a workplace environment that supports well-being, rather than simply offering benefits.
“That’s going to serve the entire workforce well in the long run, even though this is a bit of a painful transition right now, trying to figure out how to accommodate it in the right way,” she said.
Statistics Canada data analyzed by the Institute for Work & Health show that workers aged 15 to 34 have seen the sharpest increase in short-term absences related to illness and disability since the pandemic, while absences among workers aged 55 and older tend to last longer.
The rise in short-term disability leave is only part of the picture. Since the pandemic, Canadian workplaces have also seen a significant increase in requests for support and accommodations, particularly related to mental health. Examples include requests for more virtual meetings instead of in-person ones to help manage anxiety, said Monique Gignac, scientific director at the Institute for Work & Health, citing findings from her recent research.
More older workers are also coming forward to discuss their diagnoses and support needs with employers, she added.
While many workplaces are becoming more willing to accommodate employees’ support needs, some are grappling with how to do so fairly without creating perceptions of inequity among staff, Gignac said.
Aon’s Ashworth said employers are “very concerned” about the rise in mental health-related disability claims and the consequences that can follow, including reduced productivity and the cost of paying overtime to cover the work.
“Those employers who are more forward-thinking are understanding that there is value in prevention and in investing upfront,” she said.
Since the pandemic, many employers have increased mental health benefits, she added. An Aon survey showed that sick days have increased from five to eight days on average among some large organizations.
In Canada, workers typically take short-term leave through one of three avenues: Employment Insurance benefits, salary continuance programs often managed by employers, or insured short-term disability benefits.
In the latter case, the insurer’s case manager regularly follows up with the employee to monitor recovery progress and develop a plan for returning to work.
A bank employee who took leave in March due to work-related burnout told the Star that some comments the insurer made during calls made her uncomfortable. Her doctor advised her to take eight weeks off, but she was pressured by the insurer to return after five weeks, she said.
“I felt devalued, and then I felt pressure to go back, because I need to get paid.”
More workplace accommodations needed, say experts
It’s hard to pin the rise in short-term disability leave on any one thing. More likely, several forces are colliding at once: the pandemic helped further destigmatize mental illness, a new generation of workers arrived with greater expectations around well-being, and the turbulent years since 2019 have left many people carrying heavier emotional loads.
The disruptions of COVID-19, inflation, and economic turmoil have not only weighed on individuals directly but also put organizations under greater strain, pressure that often trickles down to employees in the form of heavier workloads and tighter budgets.
One theme emerged repeatedly among workers who took short-term leave and spoke to the Star: many felt the workplace, which occupies much of their waking lives, failed to support them when they were struggling.
The case for supporting workers is not purely altruistic — accommodations that keep employees healthy and engaged tend to produce better long-term productivity, experts say.
In the year before Hanzal reached a breaking point and sought emergency help at CAMH in the summer of 2022, she said she had at least twice communicated her struggles to her employer.
But support from her employer of nine years was limited. In one meeting, she said she was told that she lacked “ownership” of her work by scaling back her workload.
“What I wish, more than anything, is that someone had been willing to have a more honest conversation with me before it was too late,” she said. “I wish I had received more direct feedback, more meaningful support, and clearer guidance when I first expressed that I was in distress.”
Hanzal said she is not sharing her story to assign blame, but because she believes there is a lesson for employers: that they must truly listen when someone reaches out for help.
For the longest time, she doubted she would ever feel like herself again. Over the past few years, she received conflicting diagnoses and tried roughly 15 different medication combinations before receiving effective treatment in 2025 — and regaining hope.
Hanzal, now working as a manager in a different company, said she tries to offer her employees the support she wishes she had received.
She has also found her way back to the running trail. In May, she crossed the finish line of her first five-kilometre race since returning to running. This summer, she has her sights set on a women’s triathlon.
This article was first reported by The Star
