Employee confidence dropped in January, kicking off 2025 on the wrong foot, according to the latest data from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index. The share of employees reporting a positive 6-month business outlook fell to 45.1% in January 2025, the lowest level since February 2024. Employee sentiment has remained stagnant over the course of 2024 and unfortunately, the beginning of 2025 shows no sign of that trend changing.
The weak employee sentiment in January may reflect some resurgent economic anxiety. The share of Glassdoor reviews that mentioned layoffs rose 5% month-over-month in January. Layoff mentions were elevated over the course of 2024 and are up 2% year-over-year.
Similarly, the revival of some economic fears may have driven the softening employee confidence. The share of Glassdoor reviews mentioning inflation rose 9% month-over-month and the share mentioning recession bounced 29% month-over-month. Both measures are still well below their level from a year ago (inflation: -20% year-over-year, recession: -19% year-over-year), but these economic anxieties have kept workers on edge for much of the last 2 years.
Employee Confidence by Industry
● The sector with the largest decline in employee confidence was government & public administration (-2.8 percentage points month-over-month). As the Trump administration enters office, significant uncertainty hovers over federal workers, the status of their jobs, their ability to work from home, and funding for state or local government programs.
● Employee confidence in hotels & travel accommodation (-2.5pp month-over-month), retail & wholesale (-1pp), and restaurants & food service (+0.1pp) were soft, perhaps due to the cold weather that gripped much of the country in January.
Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index by Industry
|
Industry |
Jan 2024 |
Dec 2024 |
Jan 2025 |
MoM |
YoY |
|
Aerospace & Defense |
50.1% |
54.9% |
55.1% |
0.3% |
5.1% |
|
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation |
39.1% |
41.5% |
42.2% |
0.7% |
3.0% |
|
Construction, Repair & Maintenance Services |
55.8% |
53.0% |
54.6% |
1.6% |
-1.2% |
|
Education |
44.9% |
47.9% |
48.0% |
0.0% |
3.1% |
|
Energy, Mining & Utilities |
53.1% |
51.9% |
52.7% |
0.8% |
-0.4% |
|
Financial Services |
49.2% |
52.6% |
52.3% |
-0.3% |
3.1% |
|
Government & Public Administration |
42.4% |
48.0% |
45.2% |
-2.8% |
2.8% |
|
Healthcare |
47.7% |
50.9% |
49.7% |
-1.2% |
2.0% |
|
Hotels & Travel Accommodation |
50.4% |
48.5% |
46.0% |
-2.5% |
-4.4% |
|
Human Resources & Staffing |
55.9% |
57.2% |
57.7% |
0.5% |
1.9% |
|
Information Technology |
49.9% |
52.3% |
53.7% |
1.4% |
3.8% |
|
Insurance |
49.0% |
55.0% |
54.9% |
-0.1% |
5.8% |
|
Legal |
52.5% |
55.9% |
57.5% |
1.6% |
5.0% |
|
Management & Consulting |
52.4% |
52.3% |
51.7% |
-0.6% |
-0.7% |
|
Manufacturing |
44.6% |
42.1% |
42.0% |
-0.1% |
-2.6% |
|
Media & Communication |
45.2% |
44.2% |
45.1% |
0.9% |
-0.1% |
|
Nonprofit & NGO |
48.2% |
47.7% |
46.7% |
-1.0% |
-1.5% |
|
Personal Consumer Services |
39.8% |
37.9% |
39.5% |
1.6% |
-0.2% |
|
Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology |
43.1% |
38.5% |
41.7% |
3.2% |
-1.4% |
|
Real Estate |
56.5% |
59.1% |
59.6% |
0.5% |
3.2% |
|
Restaurants & Food Service |
35.6% |
40.4% |
40.5% |
0.1% |
5.0% |
|
Retail & Wholesale |
39.6% |
41.9% |
40.9% |
-1.0% |
1.3% |
|
Telecommunications |
41.4% |
40.7% |
41.8% |
1.0% |
0.4% |
|
Transportation & Logistics |
45.1% |
42.7% |
42.9% |
0.1% |
-2.2% |
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 fell the most for mid level employees in January (-1.5pp month-over-month), but there is still little change over the last year across seniority levels. Mid level employees have seen employee sentiment decline slightly 0.1pp year-over-year while sentiment has increased slightly for entry level (+0.3pp) and senior level employees (+0.2pp).
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 2025 is updated through January 28, 2025. In subsequent updates, we will revise partial or preliminary data from previous months.
Data on the use of terms and phrases in Glassdoor reviews is not reweighted and is current through January 31, 2025. Term usage is normalized by the total number of reviews in the month.
To read more about the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, please read our launch paper.
