US EditionGallup Finds U.S. Worker Optimism on Job Market Falls to 28 Percent
Gallup's Q4 2025 survey shows U.S. worker engagement at a decade low of 31% and 49% struggling, with federal workers' thriving rate down 12 points since 2022.
- Gallup's Q4 2025 survey found only 28% of U.S. workers believe now is a "good time" to find a quality job, with 72% saying it is a bad time. This 42-point collapse from 2022 levels marks the largest decline in job market confidence Gallup has recorded in four years.
- The Labor Department reported the hiring rate fell to 3.2% last November, the lowest since March 2013, while government data shows 7.4 million unemployed people now outnumber 6.9 million available jobs. This mismatch explains workers' difficulty changing roles.
- College-Educated workers express the lowest optimism at 19%, while 30% of all employees agree they "feel stuck" in current roles. A larger share remain primarily because leaving would be too difficult or costly.
- Declining worker well-being poses significant risks to organizational performance as "turnover intent" remains at its highest level since 2015. Employers now face heightened challenges with recruitment and retention as workers struggle to find comparable roles.
- Federal employees face particularly severe declines in well-being, with thriving rates dropping 12 points since 2022, far outpacing other government sectors. These conditions suggest constrained mobility and wage pressure will likely shape the U.S. labor market through 2026.
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More American workers are struggling than thriving for first time: poll
American workers are feeling more pressure in their lives, with a greater share reporting that they feel they're struggling than thriving in a new poll by Gallup.Gallup on Tuesday released fresh data for the firm's Life Evaluation Index, which measured how people rate their current and expected future lives since 2008. It asks respondents to evaluate their current and future lives on a 10-point scale, which is broken down as "thriving," "struggl…
Gallup's survey revealed that more than 70% of American workers consider this a bad time for the labor market
More Americans pessimistic about job market: Gallup
A vast majority of Americans expressed decreased confidence in the U.S. job market at the end of last year, according to the results of a poll released this week. The Gallup survey found that 72 percent of respondents believed it was a “bad time” to find a new role at the end of 2025, compared…
The Mercury news
It’s a bad time to hunt for new jobs, most US workers say in new Gallup poll
A new Gallup survey finds that Americans’ outlook on the job market is increasingly pessimistic. The negative shift may seem incongruous with the low unemployment rate, but the findings likely reflect an ongoing hiring drought.
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