Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has urged both the corporate world and the government to consider the death of a 26-year-old employee at Ernst & Young (EY), allegedly due to work pressure, as a wake-up call. He said that employees, from top to bottom, are under immense pressure, which he attributes to the “failure of economic policies.”

Anna Sebastian had cleared the chartered accountancy (CA) exams on November 23 last year and joined EY Pune on March 19.

“A balanced work-life ratio is a standard for the development of any country. The tragic death of a young woman working for an international company in Pune due to work-related stress, and the emotional letter her mother wrote, have shaken youth across the country. This is not just an issue for one company or a single government department; nearly the same adverse conditions exist everywhere, some more, some less,” the Kannauj MP wrote in a post on X.

Yadav said that the government and the corporate world should regard this letter as both a warning and advice. “If working conditions and circumstances are not favourable, how can performance and results be favourable? The need of the hour is to improve economic conditions rather than just focusing on rules and laws.”

He added, “The reality is that unemployment and the downturn in business due to the government’s poor policies and excessive taxes have led to increasing pressure on businesses to extract more work from fewer employees. From top to bottom, every employee is under pressure from one another. In a broader sense, the root cause of this pressure and stress is the failure of economic policies.”

“The day the government acknowledges its faults, brings about changes, creates positive economic policies, makes the tax system and rates logical rather than exploitative, and makes working conditions stress-free, positive changes will start appearing in the lives of government employees and those in the corporate world,” the former UP chief minister said.

“When the country’s mental health improves, progress will follow. The government must first change its mindset and the way work is done, where the measure is not just the number of hours worked but the results achieved in the end,” he added.

The incident gained attention after a woman alleged that her daughter died of “overwork” just four months after joining the consulting firm. Anita Augustine wrote an email to Rajiv Memani, the head of EY India, claiming that the assistant manager had once called her daughter at night with a task that needed to be completed by the next morning, leaving her with barely any time to rest or recover.

“When she voiced her concerns, she was met with the dismissive response: ‘You can work at night; that’s what we all do’,” the mother alleged.

She also revealed that many employees had resigned due to the “excessive workload,” and her daughter’s boss told her to “stick around and change everyone’s opinion about the team.”

After facing backlash over the incident, Ernst & Young issued a statement, saying, “We are deeply saddened by Anna Sebastian’s tragic and untimely passing in July 2024, and our deepest condolences go to the bereaved family.”

It added that the firm would provide all possible assistance to the family and would seek ways to improve and provide a healthy workplace for its employees.

“While no measure can compensate for the loss experienced by the family, we have provided all the assistance as we always do in such times of distress and will continue to do so.”

“We are taking the family’s correspondence with the utmost seriousness and humility. We place the highest importance on the well-being of all employees and will continue to find ways to improve and provide a healthy workplace for our 100,000 people across EY member firms in India,” the company said.