Employee confidence has hit a 10-year low.
According to a new report for September from the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index, just 42.9% of employees surveyed had a positive six-month outlook for their employer’s business, down from 44.5% last month.
The data comes from a Glassdoor survey question that asks employees to rate their company’s six-month business outlook as “positive,” “neutral,” or “negative.”
Words of the moment: ‘recession,’ ‘layoffs,’ ‘AI’
“Over the last year, employee confidence has continued to grind lower as anxiety around job security, economic uncertainty, and inflation mount,” the report states.
It goes on to say that mentions of “recession” in Glassdoor reviews rose 6% year over year, while mentions of “layoffs” rose by 13%, “inflation” by 22%, “uncertainty” by 84% and “AI” by 164%, all of which “point to a rising tide of anxiety among workers.”
Other recent studies, including from Gallup and the American Psychological Association, have similarly found that artificial intelligence is driving American workers’ fears about job security.
Which workers are feeling worst?
Out of 24 industries that the Glassdoor report compared, the sharpest losses in confidence over the past year came from employees in the following fields:
- telecommunications (-14.3 percentage points)
- arts, entertainment and recreation (-9.9 percentage points)
- restaurants and food service (-8.3 percentage points).
Based on Glassdoor reviews, factors contributing to the large drop in telecommunications employees’ confidence include recurring layoffs and restructuring, pressure to use AI, and unattainable expectations, the report says.
Only three industries exhibited increased employee confidence compared with September 2025:
- pharmaceutical and biotechnology (6.4 percentage points)
- transportation and logistics (3.6 percentage points)
- energy, mining and utilities (1.8 percentage points).
Entry-level employees’ confidence dropped by 4.1 percentage points in the last year, while midlevel employees’ fell 1.9 points. Senior employees’ confidence, however, had an increase of 4.6 points.
“Entry level workers continue to face a difficult job market with limited opportunities,” the report says, “even for the workers who have been able to find a job.”
