Credit: Adobe Stock
U.S. employers might be somewhat less interested in mental health benefits this year than they were last year, according to an employer survey summary posted by a team at Milliman.
At least some top executives appear to believe the country is facing a worker mental health crisis.
Recommended For You
But Milliman found that executive engagement seems to be falling at the employers participating in its mental health benefits surveys. This year, 29% are using "leadership messaging" to promote use of mental health resources. Although that's up from 22% in 2022, it's down from 49% in 2023.
The percentage of participants who said their organizations' mental health offerings are "very important" to efforts to recruit and retain employees fell to 22% this year, from 30% in a year ago.
The percentage who rated mental offerings as "neither important nor unimportant" to recruiting and retention increased to 19%, from 13%.
The drop in enthusiasm could be starting to affect benefits shopping lists..
All of the employers that participated said that they provide mental health resources now and will continue to provide mental health resources of some kind in 2025,
The picture was different for employee assistance programs. Today, 95% of the employers have EAPs. Just 85% expect to have EAPs next year.
Milliman did not say how many employers participated in the surveys this year and last year. It estimated that the latest survey attracted participants from employers that provide health benefits for 700,000 people.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
