Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Soft start to 2026
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Feb 6, 2026
Employee confidence got off to a soft start for 2026, 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 45.9% in January 2026, a drop from 46.3% in December 2025. In 2025, employee confidence took a round trip, plummeting to a record low in June 2025, but has since improved as economic uncertainty has lessened, ending up almost unchanged compared to where it was a year ago—45.8% in January 2025.
Employee confidence by industry
- Employee confidence in several industries reliant on consumer spending has improved over the last year. Employee confidence rose in hotels & travel accommodation (+0.9 percentage points month-over-month), arts, entertainment & recreation (+0.8 percentage points), personal consumer services (+0.9 percentage points), restaurants & food service (+0.3 percentage points). Retail & wholesale saw a decline (-1.4 percentage points month-over-month), but remains up 2.1 percentage points year-over-year. As consumer spending remains strong, employees are cautiously optimistic about business prospects.
- In industries that have been impacted by the fall 2025 government shutdown, employee confidence has improved. Aerospace & defense (+0.8 percentage points month-over-month), government & public administration (+0.1 percentage points), nonprofit & NGO (+0.8 percentage points); however, all three are still lower than where they were last year—aerospace & defense (-1.2 percentage points year-over-year), government & public administration (-4.6 percentage points), nonprofit & NGO (-5.5 percentage points). Additionally, the January 2026 government shutdown arrived after the data in this report was collected, but even a short-lived disruption may raise anxiety about uncertainty for affected workers.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Jan 2025 | Dec 2025 | Jan 2026 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 50.7% | 48.7% | 49.5% | 0.8% | -1.2% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 38.7% | 35.7% | 38.1% | 2.4% | -0.6% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 52.4% | 52.5% | 53.3% | 0.8% | 0.9% |
| Education | 48.7% | 48.1% | 48.3% | 0.2% | -0.5% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 50.7% | 49.0% | 49.7% | 0.8% | -1.0% |
| Financial Services | 51.4% | 53.3% | 53.0% | -0.3% | 1.5% |
| Government & Public Administration | 45.0% | 40.4% | 40.5% | 0.1% | -4.6% |
| Healthcare | 49.8% | 49.4% | 49.8% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 43.9% | 42.1% | 43.0% | 0.9% | -0.9% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 57.6% | 56.2% | 55.6% | -0.6% | -2.0% |
| Information Technology | 54.0% | 50.0% | 49.1% | -0.8% | -4.9% |
| Insurance | 53.0% | 54.0% | 52.9% | -1.1% | -0.1% |
| Legal | 58.3% | 57.0% | 61.2% | 4.2% | 2.8% |
| Management & Consulting | 49.0% | 48.9% | 48.7% | -0.2% | -0.3% |
| Manufacturing | 41.1% | 41.0% | 40.2% | -0.8% | -0.9% |
| Media & Communication | 41.5% | 41.7% | 42.0% | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 48.2% | 41.9% | 42.8% | 0.8% | -5.5% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 39.6% | 40.9% | 41.8% | 0.9% | 2.1% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 43.6% | 40.8% | 42.5% | 1.7% | -1.2% |
| Real Estate | 60.4% | 56.7% | 55.1% | -1.6% | -5.2% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 40.2% | 36.3% | 36.7% | 0.3% | -3.5% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 39.8% | 43.2% | 41.9% | -1.4% | 2.1% |
| Telecommunications | 44.5% | 40.2% | 39.6% | -0.6% | -4.9% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 43.0% | 43.6% | 42.2% | -1.4% | -0.8% |
Employee confidence by seniority
Employee confidence rose marginally for entry level (+0.2 percentage points month-over-month) and mid level (+0.1 percentage points) in January 2026. Both have still declined over the last year (-0.4 percentage points and -2.4 percentage points year-over-year, respectively). Mid level employee confidence has dropped sharply as businesses apply more pressure on managers to get more done with less.
Senior level employees, however, have seen employee confidence decline the most, dropping 1.1 percentage points month-over-month and 5.2 percentage points year-over-year. Kicking off the year with diminished confidence for senior level employees is a concern if senior level employees’ concerns bear out and companies pull back on hiring as a result.
A preview of the (delayed) January jobs report
The January 31 government shutdown is over, but the short-lived shutdown did delay January’s jobs report from being released as scheduled on February 6, instead postponing its release until Wednesday February 11. In the interim, what else does Glassdoor data say about the health of the labor market to kick off 2026.
The Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index does point to a hint of softening to kick off the year, with the drop from 46.3% in December 2025 to 45.9% in January 2026, but stability in industries reliant on consumer spending suggests that underlying economic growth could be holding up even as hiring remains slow.
Glassdoor reviews that mention “layoff”-related keywords have surged 14% year-over-year, but despite several prominent layoff announcements in January, there was no increase (+0%) in reviews mentioning layoffs month-over-month from December 2025 to January 2026. Employee anxiety around layoffs remain high, though to some extent, they have become disconnected from hard data around layoffs which have crept up slowly but still remain comparable to pre-Covid levels.
In interview reviews on Glassdoor from January 2026, 20% of candidates who received an offer declined it, up from 15% in December 2025 but down substantially from 26% in January 2025. The falling rate at which candidates decline offers over the last year suggests that workers may be becoming less choosy and are favoring taking any job over holding out for the best job. The jump from December to January likely reflects seasonality as hiring activity slows over the holiday and shifts to specific sectors.
Average base pay reported on Glassdoor declined 0.6% month-over-month in January 2026, falling to a mean of $70,762. Base salaries were up 3.3% year-over-year, slowing from 5.2% in December 2025, pointing to some softness in wage growth. As hiring remains sluggish, workers have less leverage to switch jobs in search of better pay.
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 January 2026 is updated through January 30, 2026. 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.
An Excel file containing the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index data is available here.
For other data used in the preview of the January jobs report:
Data on the use of terms and phrases related to layoffs in Glassdoor reviews is not reweighted and is based on reviews from U.S. full-time and part-time, current or former employees through January 31, 2026. Terms may include different grammatical forms or similar phrases. For example, layoff-related terms include but are not limited to “layoffs”, “laid off”, “lays off”.
Interview review data is based on interview reviews from candidates interviewing for jobs in the U.S. where the interview happened within 1–2 months of the review submission and the interview resulted in a job offer which the candidate reported accepting or declining. The interview data is not reweighted. Recent interview data is also subject to revision as more interviews that started in recent months are completed and reviews for those interviews are submitted.
Pay data is based on self-reported pay from U.S. full-time and part-time current employees on Glassdoor. Over 60,000 salaries each month were used in these estimates. Pay data was reweighted, using CPS microdata from IPUMS, based on industries and whether pay was hourly or not.
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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