Employee confidence concerning the job market is better than it has been in years according to Glassdoor’s Q1 2016 Employment Confidence Survey. What could that mean for your talent pipeline?
 |
Two major factors come into play when employees are considering how confident they feel about their jobs. First, the 2016 presidential election is in full swing. Second, the economic market has been a rollercoaster ride for some time now. Glassdoor® recently took the time produce their Q1 2016 Employment Confidence Survey, organized by Harris Poll.
The poll was conducted among 2,015 American adults aged 18 and over, and it took a look at employee confidence during the first quarter of 2016 concerning topics like the job market, job security, pay raises, and future business outlook. The study found that Americans feel confident in these areas, especially when compared employee sentiment in early 2009 during the Great Recession.
The Glassdoor 2016 Q1 Employment Confidence Survey monitors four key indicators of employee confidence, including job market optimism/rehire probability, pay raise expectations, job security, and business outlook.
Job market confidence near peak level. More than one-half (53%) of American employees (including those self-employed) believe if they lost their job they would be able to find a new job matched to their experience and current compensation levels in the next 6 months. This reveals the second-highest confidence in the U.S. job market since Glassdoor began its survey in 2009, up 14 percentage points from 39% in the first quarter of 2009. Job market confidence is down 1 percentage point from the third quarter of 2015 (54%).
Americans remain confident in pay raises. Nearly one-half (46%) of U.S. employees expect a pay raise or cost-of-living increase in the next 12 months, which is up 10 percentage points from 36% in the first quarter of 2009. Pay raise confidence is down 4 percentage points from the third quarter of 2015 (50%).
Job Security Confidence Soars: U.S. employees’ concerns about being laid off have reached a new low since the fourth quarter of 2014 (13%). Today, 14% of employees report they are concerned they could be laid off in the next 6 months compared to the peak of employee concern, 26% in the first quarter of 2009. Job security confidence is down 1 percentage point from the third quarter of 2015 (15%).
Business outlook optimism dropping: Nearly one-half (42%) of employees believe their company’s future business outlook will improve in the next 6 months. When asked if they expected their companies’ outlooks to get better, worse, or stay the same in the next 6 months, employees reported a record high confidence of 51% in the second quarter of 2015 that their business outlook will improve.
We saw this optimism decline in Q3 of 2015 to 48% and decline even more during Q1 of 2016 (42%), the start of an election year. Fifty percent of survey participants believe their company’s business outlook will stay the same, up 4 percentage points from 46% in the third quarter of 2015, while 7% believe it will get worse, up 1 percentage point from the third quarter of 2015 (6%).
“In 2009, our country faced its worst recession in years, and uncertainty made employment confidence weak,” said Rusty Rueff, Glassdoor career and workplace expert. “Today, employee confidence around the job market, job security, and likelihood of a pay raise is among the highest it’s been in the past 7 years. We’ll keep an eye on employee confidence around employers’ future business outlook as recent market uncertainty could be impacting employee optimism related to company performance.”
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at some of the implications of this survey when it comes to recruiting.