Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Stagnating sentiment
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Nov 18, 2024
Employee confidence was largely flat in October, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6-month business outlook rose a small tick to 47.9% in October 2024, up from 47.8% in September. Employee confidence remains stubbornly stagnant, below the peaks of 2022 and still solidly below pre-pandemic levels.
One reason that employee confidence has remained lower than a few years ago: Employers aren’t getting the benefit of the doubt anymore when career growth slows down. Many employees are increasingly feeling stuck in their careers as hiring slows down and there are fewer opportunities to grow both externally and internally. During the pandemic recovery when the job market was much hotter, employees with a low career opportunities satisfaction rating were much more willing to overlook their individual experience with career growth and be more optimistic about the business’s outlook. For example, in 2021, employees with a career opportunities rating of 1 out of 5 were 68% more likely to rate their employers’ business outlook positively than in 2019—that gap has now shrunk to 6% for 2024 compared to 2019. As the job market has cooled, this pandemic era optimism is over and employees dissatisfied with career growth are back to regarding their employers’ business outlooks skeptically.
Dissatisfied employees are referring to how “things have changed” recently. Despite earlier optimism, employees like this are facing low morale and are waiting to leave until the job market improves.
Employee Confidence by Industry
- Healthcare is one of the industries where employee confidence has increased the most over the last year, rising 5.4 percentage points. Healthcare has powered much of the economy’s job gains over the last two years and is relatively resistant to business cycles. As the American population ages, demand for healthcare services is likely to continue to grow steadily.
- Employee confidence in energy, mining & utilities has declined 2.6 percentage points over the last year. Employers in this sector tend to be more sensitive to the political climate so firms may have been holding back on making investments until the 2024 election passed. Now with the election over and that uncertainty resolved, investment and hiring may pick back up.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Oct 2023 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 50.2% | 54.7% | 56.3% | 1.6% | 6.2% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 39.0% | 41.2% | 41.0% | -0.2% | 2.1% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 57.2% | 55.0% | 54.7% | -0.3% | -2.5% |
| Education | 47.0% | 46.5% | 47.2% | 0.6% | 0.2% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 56.8% | 53.0% | 54.2% | 1.2% | -2.6% |
| Financial Services | 51.3% | 53.2% | 51.6% | -1.5% | 0.3% |
| Government & Public Administration | 43.1% | 44.7% | 47.0% | 2.3% | 3.9% |
| Healthcare | 47.0% | 52.6% | 52.4% | -0.2% | 5.4% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 47.6% | 46.1% | 47.6% | 1.5% | 0.0% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 55.8% | 60.2% | 58.1% | -2.1% | 2.3% |
| Information Technology | 50.5% | 53.8% | 53.7% | -0.1% | 3.2% |
| Insurance | 49.8% | 52.9% | 55.0% | 2.1% | 5.1% |
| Legal | 57.0% | 54.2% | 53.3% | -0.9% | -3.7% |
| Management & Consulting | 50.6% | 51.6% | 51.5% | -0.1% | 0.9% |
| Manufacturing | 45.1% | 43.7% | 43.5% | -0.2% | -1.6% |
| Media & Communication | 44.5% | 45.0% | 45.1% | 0.2% | 0.6% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 42.8% | 48.2% | 46.2% | -2.0% | 3.4% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 41.1% | 38.5% | 36.4% | -2.1% | -4.6% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 39.9% | 38.3% | 37.0% | -1.3% | -2.8% |
| Real Estate | 57.5% | 58.0% | 58.8% | 0.8% | 1.4% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 35.4% | 39.2% | 38.9% | -0.3% | 3.4% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 38.1% | 39.9% | 40.3% | 0.4% | 2.2% |
| Telecommunications | 43.5% | 42.3% | 39.3% | -3.0% | -4.2% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 45.0% | 46.6% | 44.7% | -1.8% | -0.3% |
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 has been most muted for mid-level employees, essentially unchanged (-0.1pp) over the last year, while there has been a modest uptick for entry-level employees (+2.1pp) and senior-level employees (+2.5pp). Middle managers continue to feel squeezed by budget cuts, management-trimming layoffs and pressure from leaders.
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 October 2024 is updated through October 31, 2024. In subsequent updates, we will revise partial or preliminary data from previous months.
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.
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