Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: A record low in May
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Jun 10, 2025
Employee confidence dropped in May, setting a new record low, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6 month business outlook fell to 44.1% in May 2025, down from 45.8% in April and breaking the previous record low set in February 2025. Economic uncertainty and economic anxiety are compounding to create an uneasy morass for employees, driving employee confidence lower and lower.
Economic uncertainty has surged in the last few months. In May, mentions of layoffs in Glassdoor reviews surged 9% and remain up 18% year-over-year as layoff fears continue to rise after plateauing in 2024. Mentions of uncertainty in Glassdoor reviews declined slightly in May by 2%, but remain up 63% year-over-year as President Trump signaled some tariff relief, but overall uncertainty remains extremely high. Lastly, discussions about the economy in Glassdoor reviews jumped 17% in May and are up 18% year-over-year in a sign that rising economic headwinds are creating broad anxiety that overrides employees’ feelings about their employer specifically.
Employee confidence by industry
- Employee confidence in government & public administration continues to plummet, with only 34.5% of employees having a positive outlook in May. In the half year since the U.S. presidential election, employee confidence in the sector has dropped a staggering 14.5 percentage points—almost 1 in 2 (49%) employees expressed a positive outlook in November 2024, compared to just above 1 in 3 (34.5%) as of May 2025.
- Industries affected by tariffs are showing different patterns. Manufacturing (+0.2 percentage points) employee confidence increased slightly, perhaps as some tariff relief in May alleviated the worst fears, though confidence is still 2.8 percentage points below a year prior. Construction, repair & maintenance services (+1.1 pp) employee confidence improved, though this may be boosted by a recovery from an unseasonably cold winter. Transportation & logistics (-2.6 pp) employee confidence fell as the surge in business from tariff frontrunning has started to fade.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | May 2024 | Apr 2025 | May 2025 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 51.2% | 48.2% | 51.4% | 3.2% | 0.3% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 40.5% | 37.8% | 38.7% | 0.9% | -1.7% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 57.0% | 54.5% | 55.6% | 1.1% | -1.3% |
| Education | 46.9% | 48.2% | 46.7% | -1.5% | -0.2% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 52.7% | 49.7% | 47.5% | -2.2% | -5.1% |
| Financial Services | 53.1% | 52.9% | 54.0% | 1.0% | 0.8% |
| Government & Public Administration | 42.8% | 35.2% | 34.5% | -0.7% | -8.3% |
| Healthcare | 51.9% | 50.8% | 51.0% | 0.1% | -1.0% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 39.9% | 48.6% | 48.0% | -0.6% | 8.2% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 59.5% | 56.8% | 55.1% | -1.7% | -4.4% |
| Information Technology | 53.4% | 54.2% | 53.6% | -0.6% | 0.2% |
| Insurance | 52.6% | 56.3% | 56.8% | 0.5% | 4.2% |
| Legal | 58.8% | 53.3% | 55.4% | 2.0% | -3.5% |
| Management & Consulting | 52.6% | 50.2% | 50.0% | -0.2% | -2.5% |
| Manufacturing | 44.3% | 41.3% | 41.5% | 0.2% | -2.8% |
| Media & Communication | 44.6% | 45.3% | 45.9% | 0.6% | 1.3% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 46.6% | 43.1% | 42.2% | -0.9% | -4.4% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 42.4% | 41.9% | 43.2% | 1.2% | 0.7% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 40.6% | 39.0% | 41.5% | 2.5% | 0.9% |
| Real Estate | 55.8% | 58.5% | 58.7% | 0.2% | 2.9% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 39.2% | 36.2% | 35.0% | -1.1% | -4.2% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 41.3% | 40.4% | 40.3% | -0.1% | -1.1% |
| Telecommunications | 43.2% | 45.3% | 45.5% | 0.2% | 2.3% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 44.1% | 45.2% | 42.6% | -2.6% | -1.5% |
Employee confidence by seniority
Employee confidence for entry level employees dropped slightly to 43.4% in May 2025 from 44.1% in April. Entry level employee confidence hit a record low in May, just barely lower than the previous record low from March. Employee confidence for mid level and senior employees both improved slightly but have declined 4.5 and 3 percentage points respectively over the last year.
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 May 2025 is updated through May 29, 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 May 26, 2025. Term usage is normalized by the total number of reviews in the month. Related terms may include different grammatical forms or similar phrases. For example, “uncertainty” matches on “uncertain” or “uncertainty”, “economy” matches on “economy” or “economic” and “layoff” matches on “layoff”, “laid off”, “made redundant” and other phrases.
To read more about the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, please read our launch paper.
An Excel file containing the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index data is available here.
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.
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