Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Uncertainty drags on sentiment
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | May 6, 2025
Employee confidence fell in April, remaining near the record low set in February, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6 month business outlook ticked down to 45.1% in April 2025, down from 45.3% in March and up only slightly from the record low 44.9% in February 2025. Uncertainty is an anchor on employee confidence, dragging down sentiment as policy changes and a softer economic environment leave employees feeling anxious.
Economic uncertainty is rising in measures like the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index. Similarly, uncertainty is on the rise in Glassdoor reviews. Mentions of “uncertainty” in Glassdoor reviews have surged 80% in April 2025 compared to April 2024. Worker uncertainty has been steadily rising since October 2024 and spiked at the end of March 2025 just before the Liberation Day tariff announcements.
Some Glassdoor reviews highlight the uncertainty associated with changing economic policy under the new administration, but many reviews also generally discuss the uncertainty they feel after several years of a softer economic environment or layoffs as employees sense the uncertainty they hear from their leaders.
Employee confidence by industry
- Employee confidence has absolutely plummeted in government & public administration, with just 35% of workers having a positive outlook. The drop is particularly sharp with employee confidence cratering from 49% in November 2024 to 35% in April 2025, which is the largest five-month drop we’ve seen for any industry since our data began in 2016.
- Industries most at-risk from the DOGE funding cuts and layoffs have also seen sharp drops in employee confidence compared to April 2024: aerospace & defense (-7 percentage points) and nonprofit & NGO (-4.4 pp)
- Manufacturing (-2.6 pp), energy, mining & utilities (-2.1 pp), and construction, repair & maintenance services (-2.3 pp) have seen declines in employee confidence compared to April 2024 as concerns about the cost of imported inputs rise and uncertainty about retaliatory tariffs also threaten export demand.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Apr 2024 | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 55.2% | 46.5% | 48.2% | 1.7% | -7.0% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 40.8% | 38.2% | 38.1% | 0.0% | -2.7% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 56.3% | 53.4% | 54.0% | 0.5% | -2.3% |
| Education | 47.7% | 48.2% | 48.2% | 0.0% | 0.6% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 52.2% | 49.6% | 50.2% | 0.6% | -2.1% |
| Financial Services | 50.1% | 49.9% | 52.4% | 2.5% | 2.3% |
| Government & Public Administration | 43.6% | 37.8% | 35.0% | -2.8% | -8.5% |
| Healthcare | 50.1% | 49.9% | 49.8% | -0.1% | -0.3% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 41.1% | 45.3% | 48.6% | 3.2% | 7.5% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 57.7% | 57.8% | 56.2% | -1.7% | -1.6% |
| Information Technology | 52.7% | 53.6% | 54.1% | 0.5% | 1.4% |
| Insurance | 50.9% | 54.0% | 56.1% | 2.1% | 5.2% |
| Legal | 55.9% | 55.4% | 53.3% | -2.1% | -2.6% |
| Management & Consulting | 50.2% | 48.9% | 49.7% | 0.8% | -0.5% |
| Manufacturing | 43.8% | 40.7% | 41.3% | 0.6% | -2.6% |
| Media & Communication | 44.7% | 44.3% | 45.5% | 1.2% | 0.8% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 47.1% | 43.6% | 42.7% | -0.9% | -4.4% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 38.9% | 40.5% | 42.5% | 2.0% | 3.6% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 40.4% | 41.5% | 38.7% | -2.8% | -1.6% |
| Real Estate | 54.3% | 57.6% | 57.9% | 0.3% | 3.6% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 37.2% | 37.0% | 35.8% | -1.2% | -1.4% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 38.8% | 38.9% | 40.0% | 1.1% | 1.2% |
| Telecommunications | 44.5% | 43.5% | 44.3% | 0.8% | -0.2% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 43.7% | 44.7% | 45.2% | 0.5% | 1.6% |
Employee confidence by seniority
Employee confidence for mid level employees fell to 47% in April 2025, the lowest since our data began in 2016. Employee confidence for entry level employees was lower at 43.6%, but just slightly above record lows. Senior employees have also seen their confidence decline 3.3 percentage points over the last year to 55.3%.
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 April 2025 is updated through April 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 April 27, 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.
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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