workers' stress, the chairman of the Employee Assistance Programme of Bermuda said this week.

And if it's not an employee's love life, it is psychological, emotional or family problems that are hampering job performance. Collectively, they contributed to 39 percent of Bermuda's workplace problems last year. Marital and relationship difficulties accounted for 22.7 percent.

The one factor which had no bearing on employee problems, chairman Ms Debby Graham told an EAP luncheon at Elbow Beach Hotel, was compulsive gambling.

Zero percent of the more than 1,000 member-clients who contributed to the EAP survey said they sought help for the problem.

Ms Graham also said in her report for the year that ten percent of the respondents' problems were job-related and nine percent were due to alcohol.

Four percent said they needed help for drug abuse.

Because of demand the EAP may consider adding several new programmes later this year or early in 1995, Ms Graham announced.

Among the possible new counselling areas are elderly care, parenting skills and adolescents in crisis, she said.

Ms Graham told the audience that EAP staff had spent part of the year upgrading their skills locally and abroad. She said members Mrs. Brenda Williams and executive director Ms Deborah Carr will be attending the Employee Assistance Professional Association Conference in Boston later this year.

Over the past year, the number of member companies swelled to 116, raising the total number of employees covered to 11,500.

On the downside, Ms Graham noted membership losses were running at an average of three percent a year, with 1993-1994 continuing the trend.

In summation, she said, the total number of EAP clients seen to date was 4,820. The number of clients seen in 1993-1994 was in excess of 1,200.