Workers today usually feel stressful in their workplace. Some people believe that this has always been the case and pressure is not a new thing. However, In my opinion, the competitive workplace and increasing demands from customers in modern era means that the modern worker suffers from more stress.
Firstly, the competition in the job market and the workplace make means workers have to get higher qualifications and greater skills, otherwise they will lack the competitiveness. Therefore they need to spend more time and make effort to improve their skills or gain high certificates, which occupies their leisure time and puts strains on them. By comparison, people in the past did not have ambition as modern people. So there were a noncompetitive environment in previous eras.
Secondly, the work of a manual employee increases along with the demands of consumers. Consequently, the work will take more of their time to satisfy the needs of customers. For example, if there is a high level custom order, the worker has to communicate with the consumers and modify the design for several times, which definitely increases his or her stress. By contrast, the requirement of customers is far more than the past, because of the significantly increased development of technology.
However, nowadays we can do different tasks by various tools and devices. In the past individuals had lots of repetitive tasks in their careers and so they needed to do more inefficient work. They would feel bored and tired due to these manual jobs. Although now we are enjoying our technical equipments, there is a skills threshold for using them. Consequently. modern workers need to acquire a certificate before, so it spends more time from them.
In conclusion, I believe that in spite of the convenience of technology, people nowadays have more stressful works which is taking more time as compared with the past.