Results showed that technostress had slightly increased but that work exhaustion had decreased in all fields, except health and welfare. This is understandable in the context of a pandemic that particularly burdened healthcare workers (Lancet, 2020). Furthermore, in industry sectors, there was a relatively high proportion of those who reported a substantial increase in work exhaustion. Changes in working conditions and working time are likely explanations for the lower work exhaustion scores of other Finnish workers. For remote workers, working at home might have given them more autonomy and control over their jobs, and these factors have been associated with lower work exhaustion (Alarcon, 2011; Aronsson et al., 2017). People have also saved time in transitioning to and from work, leaving more time for leisure. However, potential stressors exist when partners are also working at home and when children have online schooling due to school closures. Our results on technostress point to the fact that the change brought by COVID-19 has not been easy.
