Company growth makes workers wilt

Working for a rapidly expanding company increases an employee's risk of long-term sickness and hospital admission - and women working in the public sector are the worst affected, according to Swedish researchers.

Lead researcher Dr Hugo Westerlund said that "large and rapid expansion could lead to problems such as difficulty in recruiting enough qualified personnel and a generally unstable and less than ideal organisational structure".

* Hugo Westerlund and others. "Workplace expansion, long-term sickness absence, and hospital admission", Lancet, vol.363, pages 1193-97, 2004.