Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index: Employee Mood Darkens in September
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Oct 2, 2023
Employees are growing increasingly concerned about their employers’ business outlooks, according to the latest September data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6-month business outlook for their employers fell to 45.8 percent in September, down 0.3 percentage points from 46.1 percent in August and down significantly from 54.0 percent from September 2022. That brings employee confidence to the lowest level since the beginning of our data in January 2016.
The ongoing decline in employee confidence may reflect the ripple effects of layoffs gripping the headlines earlier in 2023. Employees are clearly still concerned about layoffs with mentions of layoffs in Glassdoor reviews rising 73 percent year-over-year from September 2022 to September 2023. While layoffs have fallen since the start of the year and fears of recession have waned amongst forecasters and executives in recent months, layoff anxiety among employees continues to rise. Additionally, employees may still be grappling with the ripple effects of layoffs as teams work to get the same work done with fewer resources or handle the often-enduring hit to morale.
Employee Confidence by Industry
- Construction had the highest employee confidence of any industry at 60.1 percent, largely unchanged from 60.0 percent in August and only 3.0 percentage points below last September. Construction is a traditionally interest rate-sensitive sector, but has held up surprisingly well as the housing market remains tight and public investment has boosted non-residential construction spending.
- Leisure and hospitality deteriorated significantly in September, falling 2.7 percent month-over-month to 40.0 percent in September. Spending in leisure and hospitality often falls as the summer draws to a close, but the decline mirrors a sharper-than-usual spending slowdown seen in credit card data.
- The information industry continues to see employee outlooks decline, falling to 48.6 percent, a sharp 13.2 percentage points lower than last September. The information industry has been hit both by a wave of tech layoffs as well as labor action in Hollywood, and the pace of decline has been largely unchanged over the last year.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
| Industry | Sep 2022 | Aug 2023 | Sep 2023 | MoM | YoY |
| Construction | 63.1% | 60.0% | 60.1% | 0.1% | -3.0% |
| Education and health services | 52.5% | 48.8% | 47.9% | -0.9% | -4.6% |
| Financial activities | 58.8% | 54.6% | 52.9% | -1.6% | -5.9% |
| Information | 61.8% | 49.7% | 48.6% | -1.1% | -13.2% |
| Leisure and hospitality | 46.8% | 42.8% | 40.0% | -2.7% | -6.8% |
| Manufacturing | 55.5% | 46.6% | 45.8% | -0.8% | -9.6% |
| Other services | 52.0% | 46.5% | 44.0% | -2.5% | -8.0% |
| Professional and business services | 63.5% | 54.2% | 52.7% | -1.5% | -10.8% |
| Public administration | 48.6% | 43.3% | 42.0% | -1.3% | -6.6% |
| Retail trade | 44.4% | 39.7% | 38.0% | -1.7% | -6.4% |
| Transportation and warehousing | 53.2% | 48.3% | 46.6% | -1.7% | -6.6% |
| Utilities | 62.8% | 55.7% | 55.3% | -0.4% | -7.5% |
| Wholesale trade | 56.4% | 50.1% | 49.3% | -0.8% | -7.1% |
Employee Confidence by Seniority
While mid-level and senior employees tend to be more positive about their employers’ business outlook overall, both groups have seen larger declines in employee confidence over the last year (mid-level: -6.6 percent, director plus: -7.1 percent) compared to entry-level employees (-4.0 percent). This could be due to a combination of buoyant economic optimism from last year cooling off amid recession fears over the last year as well as cost-cutting squeezing middle and senior management roles.
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 mentions of topics in Glassdoor reviews is not reweighted. Mentions include similar terms e.g., “layoff”-related terms include “laid off”, “layoffs”, “lay off”, etc.
Data for September 2023 is current as of September 17, 2023. 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.
Tags:Labor MarketUnemployment
