Since early 2021, millions of Americans have been quitting their jobs, leading to the popular phrase "Great Resignation." Many of these workers quit for increased pay, work-from-home flexibility, or just better treatment. Some older workers retired early, and others quit their jobs to stay home with their families during the pandemic.

As younger generations continue to spread awareness around work boundaries discussing things like "quiet quitting," work-life balance and four-day work weeks, questions arise over which employees are at high risk of burnout.

Of the 50 largest cities in the U.S., Washington, D.C., ranked highest for most overworked city, followed by Denver, Colorado and Austin, Texas, according to FinanceBuzz – a financial planning and analyst website.

FinanceBuzz examines which of the nation's cities are the most overworked by analyzing the following categories:

• Average number of hours worked per week
• Average commute time
• Percentage of households with two or more people working
• Percentage of workers who work 50 or more weeks per year
• Percentage of active workers who are ages 65 or older
• Percentage of workers in each city’s state who have two or more jobs
• Percentage of workers with a side hustle

See if your community made the list of most overworked cities

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Washington, D.C., has one of the highest rates of workers who put in more than 50 weeks per year, as well as the highest percentage of older adults still in the workforce. Las Vegas is ranked as the least overworked city.

What is burnout and how to identify it

The World Health Organization defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” 

The WHO definition rested in great part on research done by Christina Maslach, a professor emerita of psychology at University of California, Berkeley, who developed a way of measuring burnout and wrote a forthcoming book on the topic. 

Maslach said there are three main indicators of burnout: Complete exhaustion, cynicism and disconnection with respect to your job, and feeling doubtful about your own competency. People experiencing burnout become less productive and the quality of their work begins to dip.