Global research shows high burnout and depression in workplaces across industries. Canadian data confirms the same pressures here at home. And the Revelios Soundcheck Survey proves the music industry is no exception—its crisis is even deeper.
This is how the global, national, and music-industry realities connect—and what Revelios is doing to change them.
The global baseline: What workplaces everywhere are seeing
- Strong mental health support doubles the likelihood that workers feel no burnout or depression. (Mind Share Partners (MSP), 2025)
- About half of employees worldwide report moderate to severe burnout, depression, or anxiety. (MSP, 2025)
- Flexibility, psychological safety, and open conversations about mental health consistently rank higher than perks or benefits. (MSP, 2025)
The Canadian reality
- 24% of Canadians report feeling burned out most or all the time; 69% report burnout-like symptoms in the last year. (Mental Health Research Canada (MHRC), 2024; Benefits Canada)
- 42% of Canadian workers end their workday mentally or physically exhausted. (TELUS Mental Health Index, 2024)
- Nearly 1 in 4 believe their workplace is not psychologically safe. (MHRC, 2024)
Soundcheck: What Canada’s music industry is telling us
The Soundcheck Survey (2024–25) gives us the clearest signal yet from Canadian artists, crew, producers, and managers:
- Crisis levels of mental health distress: 94% agree mental health issues are widespread; 86% personally struggle.
- Financial strain is core: 79% say money stress impacts their mental health; only 6% feel job security.
- Alarming levels of suicidal ideation: 52% felt life wasn’t worth living; 43% considered suicide.
- Sleep deprivation: only 9% feel well-rested enough to perform at their best.
- High stigma & low training: 96% want mental health education, yet 81% have never received formal training.
Connecting the dots
- What MSP calls “workforce sustainability” is exactly what Canadian music lacks today: predictable pay, rest, stigma-free cultures.
- Canadian data confirms widespread burnout; Soundcheck shows it’s even higher among music professionals.
- While MSP emphasizes DEI practices as a mental health protection strategy, Soundcheck highlights that marginalized artists face compounding pressures in an already precarious field.
What Revelios Is Driving—and What’s Next
Our soon-to-be-released Soundcheck report will outline detailed recommendations, but the priorities are already clear:
- Healthy Work Contracts – enforce rest, transparent pay, and humane touring schedules.
- Financial Health Programs – literacy training and micro-grants to ease the money stress 4 in 5 music workers report.
- Mental Health Ambassadors – peers trained to spark conversations and cut stigma on the road, in studios, and backstage.
- Sleep & Recovery Protocols – schedules that treat rest as essential to performance.
- Education & Culture Change – the training 96% of music professionals say they need but still lack.
With Soundcheck ringing the alarm, 2026 has to be the year the music industry treats mental health as essential infrastructure, not a side issue. We’ll keep working with individuals, communities, labels, festivals, venues, and funding bodies to build human-centred practices that sustain creativity and well-being.
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