Employees’ confidence in their own employers just hit a 10-year low

Employee confidence across the United States has plummeted to a 10-year low, according to a recent report from Glassdoor. In September, only 42.9% of surveyed employees expressed a positive outlook for their employer's business, a sharp decline from the previous month's 44.5%. The drop is attributed to growing concerns over job security, economic uncertainty, inflation, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

Glassdoor's survey asked employees to rate their employer's six-month business outlook as positive, neutral, or negative. The report highlights that the anxiety surrounding these issues has been steadily increasing over the past year. Mentions of "recession" in Glassdoor reviews grew by 6% year-over-year, while mentions of "layoffs" surged by 13%, "inflation" by 22%, "uncertainty" by 84%, and "AI" by 164%.

The sectors experiencing the most significant declines in confidence include telecommunications (-14.3 percentage points), arts, entertainment, and recreation (-9.9 percentage points), and restaurants and food service (-8.3 percentage points). Employees in these fields cite factors such as layoffs, restructuring, pressure to adopt AI, and unrealistic expectations as contributing to the drop in confidence.

On a more positive note, employees in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology, transportation and logistics, and energy, mining, and utilities sectors reported an increase in confidence over the past year. Entry-level employees' confidence dropped by 4.1 percentage points, mid-level employees by 1.9 points, while senior employees saw a 4.6-point increase.

The report suggests that entry-level workers continue to face a challenging job market with limited opportunities, even for those who have managed to secure employment.