A research has found that there is an increase in the number of people taking offs due to job stress, especially during an economic dip.

The percentage of this dip is 25 per cent and it makes one out of four people experiencing job related stress during an economic slump.

The Society of Occupational Medicine has urged companies following the findings that have come out during predictions that Britain could be facing a double dip recession.

As workers fight with increasing load at work and uncertainty when it comes to job, companies have been urged to use occupational health services or risk long term damage to their productivity.

In 2005 in Northern Ireland, about 17000 civil servants were questioned by researchers at the Universities of Nottingham and Ulster. This was before the present recession started. In 2009 about 10000 more were questioned and this was when the impact of the downturn had started to bite.

Various aspects like work control, demands for jobs, employee-manager relationship and more were seen by the researchers. How stressed out workers felt was also seen by them. They calculated the time workers had taken off from work.

It was seen that in 2005 the number of workers feeling very stressed was 18.5 per cent and by 2009 this percentage had gone up to 26.