The great American burnout: How workers went from holding on to finally breaking free

The American worker has reached a psychological and economic reckoning. That faint, dull dread that creeps in on Sunday night is no longer an isolated sentiment, it’s a national condition. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report revealed that only 21 percent of employees worldwide were engaged at work, with the United States witnessing its lowest engagement levels in more than a decade. Experts have labeled this era “The Great Detachment,” a silent epidemic of emotional disconnection. The pandemic didn’t merely reshape workplaces; it rewired the relationship between labour and life. What was once framed as temporary fatigue has calcified into something deeper, chronic burnout, financial precarity, and an existential drift. Work, once tethered to purpose, has become transacti