Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Mixed emotions
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Jul 15, 2024
Employee confidence ticked down in June, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6-month business outlook fell to 48.0% in June 2024, a slight drop from May when positive business outlook was 48.1% (revised up from 46.4%). While sluggish, employee confidence has improved modestly from its February record low, showing some green shoots despite the headline decline in June.
Layoffs at the start of 2024 triggered a fresh wave of employee anxiety, but as layoffs have faded from the headlines, employee confidence may be rebounding. In fact, in Glassdoor reviews, we see that mentions of “layoffs” have dropped modestly, falling 8% since February 2024 when discussion peaked. Notably, discussion of layoffs still remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic, even though measured layoffs remain lower by historical standards.
Similarly, inflation and the rising cost of living are also still straining employee sentiment. Discussions of “inflation” in Glassdoor reviews have remained largely flat since September 2022, plateauing at a level that is still 60% higher than pre-pandemic in February 2020. By contrast, however, CPI inflation has made a much more marked improvement, falling from 9% in June 2022 to 3% as of June 2024. The stickiness of negative sentiment around inflation may help explain weak employee sentiment.
Employee Confidence by Industry
- Employee confidence has rebounded in white-collar sectors like financial services (+1.1 percentage points year-over-year) and information technology (+0.7pp) while remaining relatively stable in similar industries like management & consulting (-0.6pp). The plateau suggests that the white-collar downturn may be close to bottoming out.
- Employee confidence in government & public administration has increased 2.4 percentage points over the last year as strong budgets and remaining Covid relief funds continue to boost hiring.
- Education (-0.2pp) and healthcare (-0.1pp) saw very small declines in employee confidence over the last year as strong hiring in these sectors continues to act as a bulwark against weakening employee sentiment.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Jun 2023 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 53.9% | 50.3% | 50.0% | -0.2% | -3.9% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 41.0% | 40.8% | 38.3% | -2.5% | -2.8% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 59.4% | 56.7% | 57.0% | 0.3% | -2.4% |
| Education | 46.5% | 47.0% | 46.3% | -0.7% | -0.2% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 58.2% | 51.9% | 55.2% | 3.3% | -3.0% |
| Financial Services | 54.8% | 53.4% | 55.8% | 2.4% | 1.1% |
| Government & Public Administration | 42.0% | 43.0% | 44.4% | 1.4% | 2.4% |
| Healthcare | 51.4% | 52.2% | 51.4% | -0.8% | -0.1% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 49.7% | 44.1% | 43.1% | -1.0% | -6.7% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 60.3% | 58.3% | 59.5% | 1.1% | -0.8% |
| Information Technology | 53.4% | 53.7% | 54.1% | 0.4% | 0.7% |
| Insurance | 56.2% | 51.7% | 53.2% | 1.5% | -3.0% |
| Legal | 53.8% | 58.6% | 62.6% | 4.0% | 8.8% |
| Management & Consulting | 53.7% | 52.9% | 53.1% | 0.2% | -0.6% |
| Manufacturing | 48.4% | 44.8% | 45.3% | 0.6% | -3.0% |
| Media & Communication | 50.3% | 46.1% | 46.2% | 0.1% | -4.1% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 47.9% | 46.4% | 47.4% | 1.0% | -0.5% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 41.9% | 42.6% | 41.7% | -0.9% | -0.2% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 47.7% | 40.8% | 42.9% | 2.1% | -4.8% |
| Real Estate | 58.1% | 54.7% | 55.4% | 0.7% | -2.7% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 39.5% | 39.3% | 40.5% | 1.2% | 1.1% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 43.3% | 41.1% | 41.6% | 0.5% | -1.7% |
| Telecommunications | 49.4% | 43.3% | 46.4% | 3.1% | -3.0% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 49.8% | 45.8% | 47.4% | 1.7% | -2.3% |
Employee Confidence by Seniority
Employee confidence rose for entry-level workers to 50.4%, its highest level since last July. While entry-level employee confidence remains softer than pre-pandemic, the recovery is a welcome sign for new grads from Class of 2024 who are entering the workforce now. By contrast, mid-senior level employees have seen the largest declines in employee confidence over the last year, dropping 2.3pp compared to 0.1pp increases for both entry-level and director & up employees.
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 on the use of terms and phrases in Glassdoor reviews is not reweighted. Term usage is normalized by the total number of reviews in the month.
Data for June 2024 is current as of June 30, 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.
