As Pandemic Persists, US Worker Confidence Index Sees Overall Drop In Q3

• Confidence in Job Security rose slightly yet remains below pre-pandemic levels

As the Delta variant caused COVID-19 cases to spike again, the Q3 Worker Confidence Index (WCI) decreased by 9.7 points to 102.0 from 111.7 in the second quarter of 2021. The Index, a survey of U.S. workers from HRO Today Magazine and Yoh, the leading international talent and outsourcing company owned by Day & Zimmermann, gauges full-time workers’ perceptions of four key aspects of worker confidence: the perceived likelihood of job loss, the perceived likelihood of a promotion, the perceived likelihood of a raise and the perceived overall trust in company leadership.

Overall, three of the four indices that make up the Worker Confidence Index decreased from last quarter. The Likelihood of a Promotion Index saw the most significant drop of any index in the third quarter, down 20.1 points to 113.7. The Likelihood of a Raise Index decreased to 106.0, down by 11.5 points from last quarter. The Trust in Company Leadership Index decreased 9.7 points since last quarter to 100.2, its lowest point since the third quarter of 2017. The Job Security Index was the only index to increase from last quarter, up 2.3 points to 88.1. However, it still remains below its pre-pandemic levels.

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The survey found job security concerns were greatly impacted by education level. Perceived job security among those with a college degree or incomplete college degree dropped by nearly 5 percentage points from Q2 (22%) to Q3 (17.2%). Perceived job security among high school graduates showed a slight increase of 0.8 percentage points, now at 16%. Roughly 15.5% of Americans believe that it is likely that they will lose their job in the next 12 months, the lowest since the first quarter of 2021.

“The latest index shows that worker confidence is waning in several key areas and employers need to make sure they’re taking deliberate steps to engage their workforces in the face of an ongoing pandemic,” said Kathleen King, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions for Yoh. “Today, employers must be hyper-aware of worker needs and expectations on key issues like compensation, company culture and transparency in the workplace to increase confidence and ultimately retention.”

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Key takeaways of the Worker Confidence Report include:

• Workers with college degrees remain most confident about raises.
  Those with a college degree were the most optimistic, as over one-third of those surveyed (35.3%) were confident they would receive a raise. While those without college degrees (28%) or solely high school degrees (23.5%) remained less confident about the likelihood of a raise.
• Lower income workers have most concern over job security.
  The study shows that nearly 20% of those making between $35,000 and $50,000 felt the most concern of losing their job of any income group. Those making $100,000 or greater had the largest decrease in concern of losing their job since last quarter, down 8.4%.
• Trust in company takes sharp decline from Q2.
  The study found trust in company leadership fell nearly ten points from Q2 to Q3. By gender, both men and women felt less trust in company leadership, as women’s trust fell by 5.3 percentage points and men’s trust fell by 3.0 percentage points. Men remain far more likely to trust their company leadership than women (49% vs 38%).
• Women remain less optimistic about a promotion than men.
  Both men and women felt less confident that they would receive a promotion compared to last quarter. Confidence among men fell by nearly seven percentage points to 25.7%, while for women it fell 1.2 percentage points to 18.6%.

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