Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Rebound off record lows
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Aug 5, 2025
Employee confidence rebounded in July, rising to the highest level since April when the Liberation Day tariff announcements clouded the economic outlook, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6 month business outlook jumped to 45.9% in July 2025, up from 43.9% in June which was a new record low. As the most extreme tariffs from Liberation Day have been walked back, workers are warily wondering if the worst of the storm has passed though confidence remains extremely low by historical standards.
Fears of AI have appeared in the headlines as a potential explanation for the slowdown in the job market, especially for new grads, but based on Glassdoor reviews, AI doesn’t appear to be a substantial driver of the decline in employee confidence over the last few years. AI is a rare topic appearing in only about 4.5 in every 10,000 reviews on Glassdoor. That being said, when reviews mention AI, workers do appear to be skeptical. In reviews that mention AI, just 27% of employees have a positive business outlook.
Employee confidence by industry
- Employee confidence improved in several sectors dependent on consumer spending. The largest month-over-month increases of any industry came in restaurants & food service (+3.5 percentage points) and arts, entertainment & recreation (+3 percentage points), showing that consumer spending on services remains healthy despite concerns about tariffs.
- Industries more exposed to tariffs were mixed in July with manufacturing improving 0.7 percentage points month-over-month, but construction, repair & maintenance services falling 0.8 percentage points and energy, mining & utilities falling 0.9 percentage points.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Jul 2024 | Jun 2025 | Jul 2025 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 50.8% | 53.4% | 52.6% | -0.8% | 1.8% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 37.8% | 39.2% | 42.1% | 3.0% | 4.3% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 56.9% | 54.8% | 54.0% | -0.8% | -2.9% |
| Education | 44.9% | 44.2% | 42.3% | -1.9% | -2.6% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 55.0% | 47.8% | 46.9% | -0.9% | -8.0% |
| Financial Services | 55.6% | 54.1% | 53.9% | -0.3% | -1.8% |
| Government & Public Administration | 42.6% | 36.0% | 36.1% | 0.1% | -6.5% |
| Healthcare | 50.0% | 50.3% | 49.0% | -1.3% | -1.0% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 41.2% | 49.0% | 48.5% | -0.5% | 7.4% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 60.8% | 55.2% | 54.2% | -1.0% | -6.7% |
| Information Technology | 54.3% | 52.2% | 50.3% | -1.9% | -4.0% |
| Insurance | 53.3% | 55.8% | 54.8% | -1.0% | 1.4% |
| Legal | 62.0% | 52.8% | 55.7% | 2.9% | -6.3% |
| Management & Consulting | 51.9% | 47.6% | 46.3% | -1.3% | -5.6% |
| Manufacturing | 44.4% | 39.9% | 40.6% | 0.7% | -3.7% |
| Media & Communication | 45.1% | 46.2% | 46.2% | -0.1% | 1.1% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 49.1% | 41.8% | 42.1% | 0.2% | -7.1% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 43.2% | 42.1% | 39.6% | -2.4% | -3.5% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 41.6% | 39.0% | 38.6% | -0.4% | -3.0% |
| Real Estate | 56.4% | 57.6% | 56.5% | -1.1% | 0.0% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 41.7% | 35.7% | 39.2% | 3.5% | -2.5% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 41.6% | 39.5% | 38.5% | -1.0% | -3.1% |
| Telecommunications | 44.3% | 44.7% | 43.1% | -1.6% | -1.2% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 46.5% | 44.7% | 47.6% | 2.9% | 1.1% |
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 ticked up ever so slightly for entry level and mid level employees in July. 45% of entry level employees had a positive business outlook for their employers, up 0.5 percentage points but still down 1.9 percentage points from a year prior. Mid level employees similarly saw a 0.5 percentage point increase to 47.1% in July, but have seen the largest year over year increase at 3.8 percentage points. Lastly, senior level employees saw a decline in confidence in July from 61.9% to 61.0%, but also have seen a similar 3.7 percentage point drop over the last year. All seniorities have seen their employee confidence suffer over the last year, but slight improvements for entry level and mid level employees are a small ray of optimism amid a tough job market for new grads and middle managers alike.
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 July 2025 is updated through July 27, 2025. In subsequent updates, we will revise partial or preliminary data from previous months.
Data on the use of terms and phrases related to AI in Glassdoor reviews is not reweighted and is based on reviews from January 1, 2023 through July 24, 2025. Terms may include different grammatical forms or similar phrases. For example, AI-related terms includes but are not limited to “AI”, “A.I.”, “artificial intelligence”, “LLMs”, and “ChatGPT”.
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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