Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: 2nd straight record low in June
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Jul 8, 2025
Employee confidence dropped again in June, setting a new record low for the second month in a row, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6 month business outlook fell to 43.6% in June 2025, down from 44.4% in May (revised up from 44.1%). As the job market has steadily cooled, worker sentiment has slumped further. Even though the job market hasn’t fallen off a cliff, economic anxiety is still gripping workers.
As employee confidence declines, the risk of employee turnover rises. Previous research shows that workers with a negative business outlook are more than twice (2.1 times) as likely to look for a new job on Glassdoor as workers with a positive business outlook. And indeed, the quits rate has trended upward since the end of 2024. This also aligns with a prediction we made at the turn of the new year, that more employees would be fed up with their lack of career opportunities and growth prospects and quit as a result in 2025.
Employee confidence by industry
- Employee confidence dropped month-over-month in June in white-collar industries like management & consulting (-2.6 percentage points), information technology (-1.9pp), legal (-1.8pp), and pharmaceutical & biotechnology (-1.5pp). White-collar industries are not out of the woods yet following several years of sluggish hiring and high-profile layoffs.
- Employee confidence in healthcare remains fairly high with precisely 50% of workers having a positive business outlook for their employers. Confidence has declined only modestly in healthcare, falling 0.8 percentage points in June, a good sign for one of the pillars of jobs growth during the last few years.
- Hotels & travel accommodation (+1.1pp) and restaurants & food services (+0.3pp) both improved slightly in June, signaling that consumer spending is still holding up, despite softer sentiment measures declining.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Jun 2024 | May 2025 | Jun 2025 | MoM | YoY |
| Aerospace & Defense | 49.8% | 51.8% | 53.0% | 1.2% | 3.2% |
| Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 38.1% | 38.4% | 39.1% | 0.8% | 1.1% |
| Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services | 57.0% | 55.6% | 54.1% | -1.5% | -2.8% |
| Education | 45.8% | 46.9% | 44.2% | -2.6% | -1.6% |
| Energy, Mining & Utilities | 55.1% | 47.9% | 47.7% | -0.2% | -7.5% |
| Financial Services | 55.2% | 53.9% | 53.6% | -0.3% | -1.6% |
| Government & Public Administration | 43.5% | 35.6% | 36.1% | 0.4% | -7.5% |
| Healthcare | 51.1% | 50.9% | 50.0% | -0.8% | -1.1% |
| Hotels & Travel Accommodation | 39.6% | 48.0% | 49.1% | 1.1% | 9.5% |
| Human Resources & Staffing | 60.2% | 55.4% | 55.1% | -0.4% | -5.2% |
| Information Technology | 54.4% | 53.8% | 51.9% | -1.9% | -2.4% |
| Insurance | 54.1% | 56.6% | 55.7% | -0.9% | 1.6% |
| Legal | 63.7% | 54.3% | 52.6% | -1.8% | -11.2% |
| Management & Consulting | 52.0% | 50.2% | 47.6% | -2.6% | -4.3% |
| Manufacturing | 44.7% | 40.8% | 39.8% | -1.1% | -4.9% |
| Media & Communication | 45.0% | 46.5% | 46.1% | -0.4% | 1.1% |
| Nonprofit & NGO | 47.6% | 42.0% | 41.8% | -0.2% | -5.8% |
| Personal Consumer Services | 41.8% | 43.5% | 42.1% | -1.4% | 0.3% |
| Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology | 42.7% | 40.8% | 39.3% | -1.5% | -3.4% |
| Real Estate | 56.7% | 58.9% | 57.0% | -1.9% | 0.3% |
| Restaurants & Food Service | 40.6% | 35.3% | 35.6% | 0.3% | -5.0% |
| Retail & Wholesale | 41.9% | 40.3% | 39.3% | -1.0% | -2.6% |
| Telecommunications | 46.1% | 46.0% | 44.1% | -1.9% | -1.9% |
| Transportation & Logistics | 45.8% | 42.8% | 44.6% | 1.7% | -1.3% |
Employee confidence by seniority
Employee confidence for mid level employees fell 0.9 percentage points in June down to 46.3% and has declined 5.2 percentage points over the last year. Mid level employee confidence is now at a new record low, stretching back to the beginning of our data in 2016. Senior level (-3.7 pp year-over-year) and entry level (-3.2 pp) employees have seen smaller declines over the last year. Middle managers continue to be squeezed as companies trim management layers and push managers to push their teams in turn to get more done with less.
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 June 2025 is updated through June 29, 2025. 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.
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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