Psychological injuries are emerging as one of Queensland’s most expensive workplace problems, with new figures showing mental health claims are keeping employees off the job for almost four months on average and costing considerably more than physical injuries.

The latest Queensland workers’ compensation scheme statistics, released in 2026, show psychological and psychiatric injuries accounted for 8.6% of statutory claims during 2024–25 but 15.7 per cent of common law lodgements.

The average settlement across all finalised common law claims reached $182,296.

WorkCover Queensland’s annual report puts the financial pressure in sharper focus. Primary mental injury claims consumed $261 million in statutory payments during 2024–25, representing 15 per cent of the total.

Their average cost rose to $23,600, compared with $13,000 for physical injuries. Workers with a primary mental injury also recorded an average of 115.6 paid days away from work — nearly four months.

Those figures turn workplace stress from a private health issue into a major economic and employment concern.

Behind every claim is a worker who may be dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma, burnout or another diagnosed condition serious enough to interfere with their ability to remain at work.

Workers Are Searching for Answers About “Stress Leave”

As psychological injuries increase, so does confusion about what employees can do when work pressure becomes unmanageable.

Queensland legal practice Smith’s Lawyers has published guidance on your rights to stress leave in Queensland, including how personal leave, medical evidence and WorkCover claims may apply when a person’s psychological health begins affecting their ability to work.

Jason Monro, Special Counsel and Principal of Learning and Development at Smith’s Lawyers, says stress leave should be viewed as more than simply taking a break from work.

“Stress leave is a safety net when work begins taking a toll on your mental health,”

“Whether you’re feeling burnt out, battling anxiety or struggling with workplace pressure, taking time off can be the first step towards getting back on track.” Monro said

Under the National Employment Standards, full-time employees are entitled to 10 days of paid sick and carer’s leave each year, while part-time employees receive a proportionate entitlement.

Unused paid personal leave accumulates from year to year. Casual employees, however, do not receive paid sick leave under the National Employment Standards.

An employee should notify their employer as soon as practicable and provide an indication of how long they expect to be away.

Employers may request evidence that would satisfy a reasonable person, which could include a medical certificate or statutory declaration.

The evidence generally needs to establish that the person was unable to work because of an illness or injury. It does not ordinarily require the employee to disclose every private detail of their diagnosis.

Technology Workers Face an “Always-On” Pressure Cycle

Although psychological injuries occur across every industry, the problem has particular relevance to Queensland’s expanding technology workforce.

Software developers, cloud engineers, telecommunications staff and cybersecurity specialists frequently work in environments built around constant connectivity.

Overnight deployments, security incidents, system outages and urgent client demands can turn an ordinary working week into an unpredictable cycle of after-hours alerts.

The tools intended to make work easier can also make it harder to escape. Workplace chat platforms, ticketing systems, email, monitoring software and mobile notifications allow work to follow employees well beyond the office.

Artificial intelligence adds another complication. AI can remove repetitive tasks and improve productivity, but it can also encourage businesses to impose tighter deadlines or expect more output from smaller teams.

The risk is especially pronounced in technical teams where only one or two employees understand a critical system. Workers can feel unable to switch off because they know an outage or cyber incident may escalate without them.

Losing a highly skilled employee for an average of 115.6 paid days can also leave remaining staff carrying the same workload with fewer people, creating a cycle in which one psychological injury increases pressure across the rest of the team.

Sick Leave and WorkCover Are Not the Same

A worker does not need to prove that their job caused their illness before using accrued paid personal leave. The immediate question is whether the illness or injury has made them unfit for work.

A WorkCover claim is different. It involves a claim for a work-related injury and must satisfy the applicable requirements under Queensland’s workers’ compensation system.

Psychological injury claims may involve workplace bullying, occupational violence, excessive or prolonged workloads, traumatic incidents, harassment or other harmful working conditions.

In technology roles, relevant circumstances could potentially include extreme on-call demands, repeated exposure to serious cyber incidents or an employer ignoring clear signs that workloads have become unsafe.

However, feeling stressed at work does not automatically make a person eligible for compensation. A claim requires supporting evidence and an assessment of the connection between the diagnosed injury and the person’s employment.

Queensland’s system also contains an exclusion relating to reasonable management action taken in a reasonable way. Performance reviews, disciplinary action, transfers and organisational restructures do not necessarily establish a compensable psychological injury simply because an employee found them stressful.

The circumstances, conduct and manner in which the management action occurred can be critical.

Taking Sick Leave Does Not Provide Unlimited Protection

Employees have protections against being dismissed because they exercise legitimate workplace rights, including using available sick leave.

However, the protection surrounding extended illness-related absences is more complicated than the common claim that an employee can never be dismissed while on stress leave.

Workers who can provide evidence of their illness or injury are generally protected from dismissal because of their absence when they are away for fewer than three consecutive months, or fewer than three months in total over the previous 12 months.

The protection also applies while an employee is still using paid sick leave.

When an employee has exhausted their paid sick leave and has been absent for more than three months, that particular temporary-absence protection may no longer apply.

Other legal protections involving discrimination, adverse action, disability or workers’ compensation may still be relevant.

This is one reason workers dealing with a prolonged psychological condition may need to obtain individual advice rather than relying on a workplace rumour, social-media post or generic description of “stress leave.”

A Warning Employers Cannot Ignore

Queensland’s $261 million mental-injury bill should be a warning to employers that psychological safety cannot be reduced to meditation apps, resilience workshops or an annual wellbeing survey.

Businesses have a responsibility to identify and manage psychosocial hazards in much the same way they address physical workplace dangers. That means examining how work is designed, how employees are managed and whether staffing levels are realistic.

For technology businesses, the review should include after-hours communication, incident-response rosters, project deadlines, employee monitoring, excessive meetings and the volume of alerts being directed to individual workers.

A return-to-work plan may also require more than restoring an employee’s system access and placing them back at the same desk.

Reduced hours, modified duties and temporary limits on after-hours contact will achieve little if the underlying workload and workplace culture remain unchanged.

The latest figures show that psychological injuries now carry a disproportionate share of Queensland’s compensation costs.

They take longer to recover from, cost more than physical injuries and are increasingly appearing in common law claims.

For workers, understanding leave and compensation rights may provide a vital safety net. For employers, the harder question is why so many people are reaching the point where they need that safety net in the first place.