Employee confidence in February was the lowest in 9 years, survey says
Employee confidence in February was the lowest in 9 years, survey says
Know how a lot of small business owners are feeling more hesitant about hiring lately? Well now we have a glimpse into how workers are feeling.
A new survey from Glassdoor found that employee confidence dropped in February to the lowest it’s been in nine years. Just over 44% of workers feel good about how the next six months are looking at their own company.
The hard economic data published recently, like the latest jobs report, shows the labor market is still solid.
“But of course, a jobs report is looking backward. Some of the forward-looking measures are the stock market, as well as various confidence surveys,” said Jed Kolko, an economist who focuses on the labor market.
He said those forward-looking measures are not so solid. And it’s worth paying attention to how consumers, employees and business leaders are feeling, because how people feel can affect how they act.
“People who might be worried that they could lose their job might cut back on spending even before it happens. That, in turn, can slow economic growth,” he said.
As economic uncertainty rises, Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, said anxiety tends to rise too. And confidence tends to fall.
“Everybody hates uncertainty,” he said.
These days, Glassdoor found, people are increasingly worried about their own job security — especially those who work in government.
“There are a lot of workers who are seeing headlines about layoffs and worried about it affecting them,” Zhao said.
And people aren’t just concerned about being laid off themselves.
“We also see a lot of workers who talk about the downstream impacts of layoffs,” he said. “Feeling the pressure to pick up work that somebody who was let go would have done. And so there’s a lot of people who are talking about layoffs in the context of overwork, stress and burnout.”
None of this is a great sign for the economy, according to labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards.
“Recessions tend to tell us that they’re coming,” she said. “They give us lots of warnings that they’re on their way.”
Falling confidence is one of them.
When we start seeing those warnings, she said, “policymakers have the chance to adjust … what they are telegraphing in order to try and prevent that recession from taking hold. What’s most troubling about the economy right now is that the messaging coming from the White House has already been, ‘Sometimes painful things have to happen.'”
Instead of trying to make people confident again.
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