Suicide rate is on the rise among IT Professionals!

Suicides among farmers have been among news for long. Another group is now fast catching up! The new addition to this worrying list is the IT professionals. It may be ironical that the two groups represent the opposite ends of the economic spectrum though! The later one however has hardly attracted enough social attention yet. Seems it is time some concerted efforts is put to understand the dynamics behind the increasing numbers among the IT workers who take to the extreme step. Appropriate action plans need to be drawn up to instill awareness among the group and provide them support in the times of despair! There is an urgent need to intervene to arrest this alarmingly increasing trend in the most coveted professional stream of the modern times in India.

Many times these suicides are brushed aside as personal problems. The motivation varying from extra marital affairs, broken relations, health issues, acute depression to career related disappointments. Most of these triggers are dumped as personal problems, suggesting they are ‘not related to work/company’ in any manner. However, the role of work related factors that give rise to such personal issues leading to desperate situations in one’s life are often over looked. The fact that a 14-16 hrs work schedule with often it further spilling over to home is a sure shot recipe for disaster in family relations is often ignored. According to WHO, depression is the No 1 occupational disease of the 21st century! And, depression is one of the key triggers in most of the suicide incidents.

One of the statistics brought to light by a study by NIMHANS Bangalore is very disturbing. It says one in every 20 IT professionals contemplate suicide! That is certainly an alarming number and is a loud cry for help. The study also suggests that 27.6% of IT professionals in India are addicted to narcotic drugs. Lot of people takes solace in drugs and alcohol as stress reliever to escape from the high pressures of the work. Another equally worrying observation is that 36% of IT professionals in Bangalore show signs of psychiatric disorder. A survey conducted among around 500 IT/ITeS employees in Bangalore by ‘IT and ITeS Employee Center’ (ITEC), a welfare and support forum for IT/ITeS employees, suggested that almost 70% of the respondents reported sufferings from work related high stress and job insecurity fears.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, a suicide is committed every five minutes. And seven times more that number in fact attempts to take their lives. And, the most depressing fact is that more suicide occurs between the ages 18-45, ie in the most productive age group of the society.

As per the study, 85% of people under stress tend to have strained relations with family and friends. 71% people under stress refrain from social activities. 50% of people under stress say they are not able to pursue leisure activities or hobbies. 35% people suffering from social anxiety disorder say they avoid intimacy with partners.

IT/ITeS jobs, while offering a better standard of living, is taking its toll on mental and physical health as well as on the social and family relationship aspects. Work overload resulting in spill over of workload at home, guilt over being less attentive to family, career related issues and dissatisfaction all adds up taking severe toll on one’s overall health and wellness. Many people reports feelings like frustration, being overwhelmed, anxiety, other health problems like headache, backaches, hypertension, insomnia etc.

While every job may have its own stress and related problems, IT jobs pose different problems compared to the traditional jobs and are quite different from the typical secured employment that Indian middle class is accustomed to. The jobs are mostly contractual with less job security (even for so called ‘permanent’ employees, the jobs are very much tied to the project inflows and thus always at the risk of losing based on the global swings in the business and economic environment). Thus the professionals are stressed from both job pressure as well as the job insecurity. Jobs in IT are most coveted in India. Every middle class family wants their children to succeed with a high-flying career in the IT field. Increased burden of these high expectations comes with its own added stress. Social pressures and expectation from the family force people to continue in the IT field even if many would like to switch to a less demanding field

Employees in ITeS profession work in shifts ranging anywhere from 12 to 16 hrs a day. Much work in night shifts and their partners will also be working in the IT field working in day shift. With many BPO companies, it being 6 day a week, hardly the couple meets each other. This severely affects the harmony at home and strain family relations. High competition at work place, high rate of employee turn over, less involvement in corporate decision making, lack of career progression are all some of the factors these individuals face with.

Work environment, nature of work, performance assessment methods, high competition, job compartmentalization all have made IT professionals highly individualistic. IT jobs are not of the nature where large number of workers needs to continuously support each other or closely dependent on each other. People sitting in the very adjacent cubes physically for 12-14 hrs daily are still highly isolated as individuals. Job time span with a single company becoming as low as 1-2 years for most people, rarely close friendships are cultivated. With very superfluous relations being created among the peers and team members, it is no surprise that at the time of distress the person see no one to turn to for emotional support. It is here that an industry-wide welfare and support forum and togetherness of IT employees can contribute a lot.

Recently a friend called for help to find a new job. He works as a manager in a BPO company in Chennai and his shift starts at evening 5pm. He works for US shift as the company caters to US customers. His shift often extends to morning 8 or 9 and he has a 6-day week. His wife works in another IT company. ‘They hardly meet each other’ would be an over simplified description of the situation! He suffer from health problems, stress, sleep disorders and to top it all, an about to collapse married life! His cry for help is certainly not an isolated one in the industry!