Work-related stress in apparel employees [Stres na radnom mjestu u odjevnoj industriji]

Stress is a mental and physical condition, which affects an individual's productivity, effectiveness, personal health and quality of work. The purpose of the present study is to examine the findings of a large community wide survey on sources of work stress. The participants were 1023 apparel workers at six manufacturing companies producing ready-made garments in four major textile cities in Turkey. A questionnaire was used to collect data on some important topics like psychological strain, relationships at work, environmental conditions, salary and demographic characteristics. Textile engineers working in the participant companies took the main role in distributing questionnaires to apparel workers and collecting them. The survey was conducted in January-March 2007. Most of the questionnaires were returned within 2 weeks. All possible pairwise comparisons are evaluated by Fisher's multiple comparison method. It was found that long working hours, salary and workloads were the main work stress sources for the apparel workers that lead to stress at the work place. This study indicates that employees in apparel companies are stressed due to lots of parameters. Well-planned strategies and organizations that consider the period and amount of the work, good salary and training will provide good results to the employees, companies and also national economy