In the wake of the subprime mortgage market’s collapse, employers are experiencing the fallout in the form of increasing employee stress. Employee assistance programs are seeing spikes in calls from workers who are on the verge of losing their homes or having to declare bankruptcy. The psychological and emotional stress of workers dealing with unaffordable spikes in their mortgage payments – which in some cases are on homes worth less than their loan amounts – is taking its toll among workers nationwide.

John Jones, financial counselor for Chicago-based ComPsych Corp., which supplies psychological counseling services for employees at thousands of organizations, says 1 out of 3 of his calls are for financial stress. “This is by far the worst that I’ve seen,” he says. “A lot of people bought homes they shouldn’t have bought.”