Burnout as Structural Cognitive Extraction: How Modern Economies Convert Human Capacity Into Exhaustion: A Structural Synthesis Using Labour‑Market and Economic Indicators

This paper presents burnout not as an individual psychological condition but as a measurable structural outcome of modern economic systems. Using labour‑market indicators from the OECD, Statistics Canada, the Health and Safety Executive, and the International Labour Organization, it demonstrates that rising stress, absenteeism, presenteeism, turnover, and disability claims form a coherent pattern of cognitive and emotional over‑extraction. The paper argues that burnout emerges when institutional demands on attention, decision‑making, emotional regulation, and identity exceed human recovery capacity — a dynamic captured in the document’s core formulation that burnout is “the point at which the system exceeds the human capacity it depends on.” Through a synthesis of economic pressures, work–family contradictions, and behavioural indicators, the paper reframes burnout as a boundary condition of system‑level imbalance rather than a personal deficit.