Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: All time record low in February
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Mar 11, 2025
Employee confidence dropped in February to a new record low as a chill comes over employee sentiment, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6-month business outlook fell to 44.4% in February 2025, the lowest level on record since our data begins in 2016. Rising economic uncertainty is tamping down employee sentiment and also stretching employees thin as workers are asked to do more with less amid tight budgets and pressure from leaders.
Economic anxiety and, in particular, concerns about job security, layoffs and its impacts on the workforce left behind are weighing on employees. Mentions of layoffs in Glassdoor reviews rose slightly in February, up 0.3% month-over-month, but this takes the level of layoff discussion in Glassdoor reviews to at their highest level since July 2020. This measure is also 5% higher than February 2024.
In reviews that mention layoffs, not only are employees worried about their own job security, but even employees who have survived layoffs are feeling stressed waiting for another layoff to come or overworked as they have to pick up the additional work on their now less-staffed teams.
Employee Confidence by Industry
- Employee confidence in government & public administration fell 4.9 percentage points month-over-month, bringing the total decline over the last year to 7.3 percentage points. Cuts to the government workforce initiated by DOGE have thrown the future of the federal workforce into disarray, resulting in weakening sentiment. Additionally, only 38.1% of government workers had a positive outlook, tied with the restaurants & food service industry to be the lowest across all industries.
- Employee confidence in manufacturing dropped 3.7 percentage points over the last year. Tariffs have introduced significant uncertainty for manufacturers, as trade policy continues to change on an almost-daily basis.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Feb 2024 | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 54.7% | 51.5% | 48.0% | -3.5% | -6.8% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 39.4% | 40.3% | 39.2% | -1.1% | -0.2% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 55.0% | 53.2% | 53.9% | 0.7% | -1.1% |
| Education | 45.5% | 48.2% | 48.4% | 0.2% | 2.9% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 53.5% | 50.1% | 50.3% | 0.2% | -3.3% |
| Financial Services | 48.8% | 50.9% | 49.0% | -1.9% | 0.2% |
| Government & Public Administration | 45.5% | 43.0% | 38.1% | -4.9% | -7.3% |
| Healthcare | 47.0% | 49.6% | 50.3% | 0.8% | 3.3% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 43.7% | 44.3% | 42.6% | -1.7% | -1.1% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 53.9% | 57.3% | 59.0% | 1.7% | 5.1% |
| Information Technology | 50.4% | 54.1% | 55.3% | 1.2% | 4.9% |
| Insurance | 49.6% | 52.3% | 53.3% | 1.0% | 3.7% |
| Legal | 53.1% | 57.7% | 55.3% | -2.4% | 2.2% |
| Management & Consulting | 48.3% | 48.9% | 47.6% | -1.3% | -0.7% |
| Manufacturing | 44.2% | 40.6% | 40.5% | -0.1% | -3.7% |
| Media & Communication | 45.1% | 44.0% | 44.0% | 0.0% | -1.2% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 48.4% | 46.5% | 44.4% | -2.1% | -4.0% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 36.1% | 39.3% | 40.3% | 0.9% | 4.1% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 41.0% | 44.1% | 42.3% | -1.8% | 1.3% |
| Real Estate | 54.5% | 60.2% | 58.2% | -2.0% | 3.7% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 35.4% | 39.8% | 38.1% | -1.7% | 2.7% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 38.4% | 39.7% | 38.3% | -1.3% | -0.1% |
| Telecommunications | 42.1% | 43.3% | 44.0% | 0.7% | 1.9% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 43.2% | 43.7% | 43.9% | 0.2% | 0.7% |
Note: Industry-level data is the three-month trailing average of the index. MoM & YoY are percentage point changes.
Employee Confidence by Seniority
Employee confidence fell the most for mid level employees over the last year (-1.7 percentage points year-over-year), bringing employee sentiment down to its lowest level since April 2016. Similarly, confidence for entry level employees has fallen to its lowest level on record since our data began in 2016, though the decline over the last year has been more muted (-1.4 percentage points) as entry level employee sentiment has already been more depressed since the beginning of 2023. Employee confidence for senior level employees has declined 0.9 percentage points over the last year, the least among these three groups, though still a decline, indicating nervousness about the trajectory of the economy is reaching even executives.
Methodology
The Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index is a new report that provides a real-time pulse on the economy from the lens of employees. As one of the world’s leading sites for insights on jobs and companies, Glassdoor collects tens of thousands of employee ratings of their employers’ six-month business outlook (rated as “positive”, “neutral” or “negative”) each month.
The index is the share of U.S. full-time and part-time employees who report a positive six-month business outlook for their employer. The index is reweighted to account for changes in the platform and by industry to match a nationally representative mix of employee ratings by industry. Data presented at the industry and seniority level are three-month trailing averages.
Data for February 2025 is updated through February 27, 2025. In subsequent updates, we will revise partial or preliminary data from previous months.
Data on the use of terms and phrases in Glassdoor reviews is not reweighted and is current through February 28, 2025. Term usage is normalized by the total number of reviews in the month.
To read more about the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, please read our launch paper.
Daniel Zhao
Daniel Zhao is Chief Economist at Glassdoor. On Glassdoor's Economic Research team, he has conducted research using Glassdoor's unique data on a variety of topics affecting job seekers and employers ranging from the health of the job market to pay transparency to employee engagement & retention. His work has been cited in publications like the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review and more. Prior to joining the Economic Research team, he also worked on improving the user experience for Glassdoor’s consumer jobs product and mobile app. He holds a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard College.
Tags:Employee Confidence
