Employees Have Never Felt Worse About What Comes Next
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Worker confidence just hit its lowest point Glassdoor has ever measured, and this is the third time this year that’s happened. In September, only 42.9% of U.S. employees said they expect good things from their company over the next 6 months, down from 44.5% in August. Glassdoor Chief Economist Daniel Zhao says the drop reflects worry about job security, the economy, and prices that keep building month over month.
The review data backs that up directly. Compared to a year ago, mentions of recession in Glassdoor reviews are up 6%, layoffs up 13%, inflation up 22%, uncertainty up 84%, and AI up 164%.
Some industries are taking a much harder hit than others. Media and communications and arts and entertainment each dropped 2.2 points in September alone. Telecommunications sits at the bottom of the list, down 14.3 points over the past year to 29.8%, the lowest reading of any industry Glassdoor tracks. Telecom workers point to repeated layoffs, pressure to use AI to automate their own jobs, and quotas they can’t hit. Insurance fell 1.7 points in September, with workers citing layoffs, AI replacing jobs, and AI tools that monitor their work.
A few industries moved the other direction. Pharma and biotech rose 2.5 points last month and 6.4 points over the year. Human resources and staffing posted the highest reading of any industry at 54.4%.
The sharpest split in the whole report falls along job level, not industry. Entry-level confidence dropped 0.9 points in September and sits 4.1 points below where it stood a year ago. Senior employees rose 0.2 points for the month and are up 4.6 points over the year. Mid-level workers were flat in September and down 1.9 points year over year.
The gap between the top and bottom of the org chart is the number I’d sit with the longest. Senior employees feel 4.6 points more confident than they did a year ago, while entry-level workers feel 4.1 points worse. When the people making hiring decisions feel better about the economy than the people trying to get hired, you end up exactly where this market sits right now: leaders who like the outlook but still aren’t opening many junior roles.
The AI numbers deserve their own look too. Mentions are up 164% in a year, and the industries raising it most, telecom, media, and insurance, describe a specific kind of worry: pressure to automate their own jobs, AI replacing creative work, and software that tracks how they spend their day. This is anxiety about a specific tool sitting on their own desk, not abstract worry about AI somewhere out in the economy.
If you manage people, 42.9% means most of your team is bracing for bad news whether you’ve given them a reason to or not. Silence from leadership gets filled with the worst assumption available. Tell your team what you know, even when the answer is as simple as “no cuts are planned.” If your own hiring or retention strategy needs a rework to match what this data shows, talk to us about hiring and we’ll help you figure out where to start.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Would You Erase Your Own Experience to Get Hired?
Plenty of workers believe having too much experience can cost them a job, and Monster’s newest research shows just how far that belief pushes people to change their resumes. Monster surveyed 1,001 U.S. adults in late July, and 40% said they’d lost a job because an employer thought they were overqualified, split between 21% who were told so directly and 19% who strongly suspect it.
The worry shows up before anyone gets rejected too. 45% say they’ve been excited about a job but worried their background would work against them.
This worry is reshaping what people put on paper: 57% say they’d remove experience from their resume if it doubled their chances of getting hired, and 43% say they already have. The most common cut is older work experience at 18%, followed by graduation year and years of experience at 6% each.
When asked why employers hesitate on experienced candidates, workers pointed to two fears above everything else. 36% said employers assume they’ll leave for something better, and 35% said employers assume they’ll want more money. Smaller shares pointed to fears that they’ll challenge management (13%), won’t fit the team (9%), or will get bored (7%).
Workers who would knowingly step down a level have real reasons behind it. The top one is better work-life balance at 25%, followed by wanting to join a specific company (19%), less stress (18%), job stability (14%), remote or flexible work (13%), and a career change (11%).
The two reasons workers think they get passed over, that they’ll leave or that they’ll want more money, are both questions a hiring manager can answer with a 10-minute phone call. Most never ask. They see a senior title sitting on top of a mid-level job posting, assume the worst, and move to the next resume in the stack.
The reasons people give for stepping down on purpose are the answers I’d want to hear as an employer: balance, less stress, a specific company they chose. Someone who picked a role deliberately is at least as likely to stay as someone treating it as a placeholder. On the resume question, trimming older experience is ordinary practice, and most resumes don’t need a job from 20 years ago on them. Hiding a senior title or an advanced degree adds more risk, because it tends to surface in the interview or the background check, and then the conversation shifts to why you left it off in the first place. If your screening process is filtering out strong candidates over a title instead of a conversation, explore our staffing services and let’s fix that before it costs you someone good.
Three Big Reports Land This Week, Here’s What to Watch in Each
Last week’s stopgap funding bill keeps the government open through December 11, so all 3 major labor reports due this week should land on schedule.
JOLTS data for August publishes Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. ET. July showed 7.3 million job openings, a 4.4% rate, with hires and separations each at 5.1 million. Quits sat at 3.1 million, a 1.9% rate, and layoffs were 1.7 million. Forecasters expect openings to land around 7.2 million. The number worth watching is the quits rate. It’s been stuck near 1.9%, which tells you workers aren’t confident enough in their options to leave on their own, a finding that lines up directly with today’s Glassdoor confidence numbers. Hires in professional and business services are also worth a look, since they fell 188,000 in July.
ADP’s September National Employment Report publishes Wednesday at 8:15 a.m. ET. August came in at just 38,000 private jobs added, the slowest pace since January, and July was revised up to 46,000. Education and health services added 45,000 in August while manufacturing lost 17,000 and professional and business services lost 16,000. Large employers added 34,000 jobs, while small and midsize employers combined added only 3,000. Pay growth held up better than headcount: job-stayers saw base pay up 3.0% year over year, and job-changers were up 4.7%. Forecasters expect around 70,000 for September.
The Employment Situation report for September publishes Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. August blew past expectations at 162,000 jobs added against a forecast near 53,000, with unemployment holding at 4.1%. July’s number was revised from a loss of 23,000 to a gain of 21,000, and June moved up to 31,000. Food service (+59,000) and local government education (+42,000) drove most of August’s gain, while information lost 23,000 jobs. Wages rose 0.3% for the month and 3.1% for the year, and labor force participation sat at 61.6%, down 0.5 points since January. Forecasters expect around 90,000 jobs added for September, with unemployment steady at 4.1%.
The thread connecting all 3 releases is the gap between August’s official number and everything else pointing to a slower market. BLS reported 162,000 jobs added in August. ADP reported 38,000. Much of the BLS gain traced back to restaurants and public school hiring, not broad private-sector demand. If Friday’s report lands near the 90,000 forecast and ADP stays weak on Wednesday, the honest read is a market that’s hiring, just thinly and unevenly. A second big beat from BLS, especially if the revisions hold up, would put real weight behind a rebound story instead of a one-month fluke.
