Between rising tariffs, an increased cost of living, and extensive federal layoffs, February felt pretty abysmal for many American workers. Now, there’s data to show that it might have been one of the worst months in recent history for employee sentiment.
That’s according to Glassdoor’s monthly Employee Confidence Index, a report that uses Glassdoor’s database of millions of employees’ reviews to get a “real-time pulse on employee confidence in their company’s six-month business outlook,” according to the company’s website. Last month, the share of employees reporting a positive six-month business outlook fell to 44.4%—its lowest point since Glassdoor began publishing the index in 2016 (for context, the average outlook hovers around 50% positive).
Sentiments were low across the board, but some industries were hit harder than others. These are the sectors where workers felt the most pessimistic about the coming months:
Government and Public Administration
Over the past several weeks, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been on a mission to “reduce waste” by slashing tens of thousands of federal jobs, including gutting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), halving the Department of Education, and laying off 10% of the workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Not surprisingly, these massive cuts have resulted in rising job security fears among government employees. Employee confidence in the government and public administration sector plummeted by 4.9% month-over-month, bringing the total decline to 7.3% year-over-year.
“Cuts to the government workforce initiated by DOGE have thrown the future of the federal workforce into disarray, resulting in weakening sentiment,” the report reads. “Only 38.1% of government workers had a positive [six-month] outlook.”
Retail
Dissatisfaction among government employees was matched only by retail workers. Similarly, only 38.1% of retail employees reported feeling positive about the future—though, to be fair, that’s only a 0.1% drop from this time last year.
The retail industry has seen a barrage of headwinds in recent months. As the cost of living continues to rise, many consumers are opting to spend less, with major retailers including Walmart, Target, and Costco reporting noticeable dips in consumer spending last month. Meanwhile, the ongoing retail apocalypse has seen thousands of stores close across the nation, with companies like Joann fabrics and Party City going out of business entirely.
Restaurants and Food Service
Behind government employees and retail workers, food-industry employees were the third-most dissatisfied sector in the new report.
The restaurant industry is currently facing down a number of potential tariffs that could make such products as coffee, tea, fruit, and vegetables much more expensive, and in some cases, inaccessible. Meanwhile, some of the nation’s largest fast-food chains—like McDonald’s—are struggling to attract customers in an era of frugal spenders, who increasingly view meals on-the-go as a luxury.
