The Signal: Mental wellbeing is increasingly on the minds of employers. Mentions of mental and behavioral health hit an all-time high in Q4 earnings calls last year, according to CB Insights. More than 80% of surveyed employers (including dozens of Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies) plan to offer virtual mental-health services to their employees in 2020, with that figure rising to 95% by 2022.

Anxiety and other mental-health challenges have been on the rise over the last decade, with 1 in 5 US adults facing some kind of mental-health issue in any given year. Research shows that 62% of missed work days can be attributed to mental-health conditions, with unwell workers costing companies $2.2T in lost productivity each year in the US alone.

These statistics were all pre-COVID, the pandemic that’s given us a wealth of new things to worry about, like record-high unemployment.

search interest for "coronavirus anxiety"
Source: Google Trends