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U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low
- TekMol 2y agoWould love to see these numbers for Europe. Here is something I noticed in Germany: It is surprisingly hard to go out for lunch or a coffee and get good service these days. In many restaurants and cafés where you have been served by friendly people who were interested in what they sell and happy to see customers, you are now served by people who are completely out of touch with what they do. Disinterested, and sometimes even outright grumpy towards customers.
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoIs this Germany or San Francisco?
- barrenko 2y agoAnything that happens in San Francisco is eventually exported world wide, just like negligence on street crime, etc.
- forgetfreeman 2y agoI assure you San Francisco is significantly less influential than you make it out to be here. Local trends in SF don't even propagate well to the East Coast of the US.
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoOr Los Angeles, what's left of it.
- barrenko 2y agoI beg your pardon(s), respectfully I think you are all wrong.
- forgetfreeman 2y agoWhich makes none of us caring even funnier. To the extend that the east coast even thinks about San Francisco at all it's typically viewed as a roadmap of how to fuck up everything all the time.
- jahnu 2y agohttps://sfstandard.com/2025/01/07/san-francisco-crime-rate-fell-to-23-year-low-in-2024/ https://sfstandard.com/2025/01/07/san-francisco-crime-rate-f...
- chvid 2y agoI would guess "employee engagement" depends a lot on how you measure it and because of that likely is hard to compare across borders/culture. And also - wait until spring - then I am sure the Germans will be in a better mood.
- dave4420 2y agoIf Germany is anything like Britain, I expect they will be in a worse mood come the autumn.
- truckerbill 2y agoPeople are struggling
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoAlternatively: we haven’t had a jobs recession (absent stimulus) in over a decade.
- truckerbill 2y agoAre you saying: people aren't scared enough? Or poor enough?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> people aren't scared enough? Or poor enough? Neither. Labor markets are tight. That improves employees’ bargaining power. The time since our last jobs recession means more may choose to trade that leverage for free time versus savings. (I certainly have.)
- truckerbill 2y agoI see the logic there, though I think there's more to it. Like quality of work, and reward structures for hard work. Carrots work much better than sticks, with much lower risk of social unrest. I think those on the broad right are also undervaluing the power of idle hands at this point in time: some small percentage curious people with free time are largely responsible for innovations in society that everyone benefits from, the rich most of all. We still need at this point, new ideas with which to feed into the training data of the coming AI labor decimators.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoYou're not wrong, but I believe we're still in the tightening phase. During the "Great Resignation," workers had lots of power because of labor shortages. Employers responded by firing and rehiring (Meta) to reset wages, offshoring, H1Bs, etc. It's also why, I believe, that employers are dragging out hiring as long as possible. They want to "redline" the org and see how far they can push to cram down labor costs and wages (throwing job reqs out over and over with lower and lower comp to trawl for the desperate) while also striving for as much profitability as possible in a high cost of capital environment (see Fed benchmark rate and cuts going to be pushed out much longer due to strength of economy). Employee bargaining power will be challenging for the next few years with the new admin being anti-worker (with regards to organizing and labor rights enforcement), but at the same time, we must consider structural demographics and the fact that ~11,200 Boomers retire per day (~4M/year). Because of the slow burn of this, the labor market is in a bit of a Mexican Standoff. How this resolves or concludes, I cannot predict. Services labor would tighten if immigration of all sorts was constrained, labor that requires firm authorization checks would tighten faster if some combination of Boomers leaving the labor force faster or workers 55+ aging out faster occured.
- smatija 2y agoIn Slovenia also good service in (affordable) restaurants and cafés became scarce. Here at least it's easy to see why though: 20-30 years ago most of service staff went to catering vocational schools (and work as server was seen as reputable career), while today majority of serving work is done by part-time students (and work in service is seen as deadend job).
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoMy guess is that employers wanted cheaper part time staff?
- smatija 2y agoOf course, and liberalization of student work let them get that. At the "small" cost of worsening a large part of job pool and custumer experience.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoMy guess is that customers wanted cheaper food and drinks? It is well documented that operating cafes and restaurants is among the lowest probability avenues for becoming rich, and highest probability avenues for the business failing. This is most likely a consequence of demographics and excessive rent seeking. Labor prices go up, and people are only able or willing to pay so much for food service before deciding it is better to do it themselves.
- TekMol 2y agoexcessive rent seeking What is excessive rent seeking? Isn't rent based on supply and demand?
- lotsofpulp 2y agoWhen spaces in urban areas stay empty for years on end, that is excessive rent seeking. When a person wanting to start a business chooses not to because there is a 90%+ chance all their efforts will result in most of the profit going to the landlord when the lease renewal comes up, that is excessive rent seeking (most visible as only franchise or chain restaurants opening). When young people in the bottom two income quintiles can see they will never be able to save enough (because of spending their money on rent and higher prices paid to businesses that are paying rents) to afford buying a place of their own, so they forgo pursuing goals of forming families, that is excessive rent seeking.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoWhy is this surprising? Are there that many HNers out of touch with blue collar work?
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoSurprisingly, in japan the don't give a shit attitude seems absent. Is it not blue collar work in Japan?
- orwin 2y agoCheck ILO numbers about worker productivity in Japan, I'd bet the feelings are the same, they're courteous enough not to show it.
- PoppinFreshDo 2y ago[dead]
- coldtea 2y agoRather they are in touch with the fact that the blue collar work described worked better a decade ago... Then again, the future also looked better a decade ago, inflation wasn't crushing us, and so on...
- Propelloni 2y agoWell, that future is now, and it is better! People keep saying that things are on a downturn since forever, but the numbers don't support an actual impact on quality of life [1], at least in the EU. According to levels of consumption prosperity has been pretty stable over the last ten years [2]. Could we all be more prosperous? Sure, distribution of wealth has become unjust _and_ unfair and we need to do something about it, and we can do this democratically. The future does not look bleak if you live in one of the rich, western democracies that make up the EU members. Anybody who fearmongers and tells you that we are under siege, or in the crapper, or threatened by immigration or whatever is trying to sell you a narrative to further their own agenda, an agenda that will harm the blue collar workers. So stay vigilant. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_indicators_-_overall_experience_of_life https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- camillomiller 2y ago1st. In Germany for 10 years, it's always been the case. Unfortunately that's somewhat cultural, especially in big cities. 2nd. Especially in big cities, the cost of living has skyrocketed and the quality of life with service salary has become really bad. If you're forced to work such job, there is no way you'll be happy doing it. I don't fully condone how rude service workers are sometimes, but I completely understand their disengagment. 3rd. Gig economy has completely effed up the service industry. It used to be that if you're a student, working in a cafe or a restaurant was the perfect go to side job you could afford while studying. Now that doesn't make any sense anymore, as working as a gig worker makes so much more sense. You still don't earn good money, but at least the sector is much better regulated now, and also you can decide how much you work, without having to deal with customers that much, nor having to bicker with small food establishment bosses with unrealistic expectations about service workers engagement.
- lnsru 2y agoThis! Especially 2nd! Most of the normal jobs do not cover the cost of living in the cities. The salaries are not high enough for positions like clerks, kindergarten staff, teachers, medical staff, firefighters, cops, cashiers. You name it. And for a couple with good jobs and without kids taxes bite really hard, purchasing power is not the one expected from top earners. Add rising mandatory medical and retirement insurance costs. This is just not good.
- mgh95 2y ago> And for a couple with good jobs and without kids taxes bite really hard, purchasing power is not the one expected from top earners. Add rising mandatory medical and retirement insurance costs. This is just not good. About this, as I try to hire employees, I absolutely hate our tax code. DCAP is painfully low (5k). I really wish we could find a way to allow employers to offer pretax benefits and directly provide childcare as a fringe benefit. But you're 100% right, mandatory take a maximum chunk and workers should have lower taxes.
- weinzierl 2y agoRegarding 3: What are examples of gig economy work in Germany? I always thought this was things like Uber that pretty much do not exist in Germany. Sorry for being so out of touch, but I am curious.
- realusername 2y agoSame in France, I can't blame them, bad and good employees are paid the exact same minimum wage so why would you bother? There's definitely a salary crisis, employers don't want to reward good employees anymore. Competitors are paying the exact same salary down to the cents, if it goes too badly, you'll be paid the same somewhere else anyways.
- lnsru 2y agoHere you go for Germany: https://www.manager-magazin.de/karriere/umfrage-nur-48-prozent-geben-ihr-bestes-auf-der-arbeit-a-31c1d244-1c25-40c6-a437-96919e741dce https://www.manager-magazin.de/karriere/umfrage-nur-48-proze... Do I give my best? No I don’t. I want to be well rested and healthy. However I do my hours without slacking and really work from home when I do home office. I have tons of crap from previous employees to clean up for years. Rudimentary stuff nobody cares of. Why should I overwork when nobody did this for decades before me in this chair.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoFriendly people serving you in the past in Germany were millenials from post-Communist countries. They're 40 years old now.
- trilbyglens 2y agoHere in Prague we just call that Czech Culture.
- Propelloni 2y agoAlso located in Germany, Cologne area. I can't confirm this. Maybe it's a regional thing?
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoMaybe we can have Elon Musk come along and give the workers of America a pep talk.
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoYa know, his "hardcore" ultimatum could be rephrased as "you gotta be engaged in your job". And honestly Americans could use that pep talk.
- black_puppydog 2y agoDon't worry, they're gonna get at least 4 years' worth of that. Yaaay!
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoYou are more optimistic than I am.
- dionverbeke 2y agoThe beatings will continue until morale improves
- PoppinFreshDo 2y ago[dead]
- meheleventyone 2y agoThe beatings will continue until morale improves.
- PoppinFreshDo 2y agoThe article talks about promoting engaging managers. Is this not about management after all?
- benjaminwootton 2y agoThe amount of engagement and passion for work feels at an all time low based on the circles I move in in the UK. Almost everyone I know has half an eye on the exit or they are making decisions like cutting back to one person businesses or taking big pay cuts for remote. Nobody seems hungry for promotions or more money. There’s so much apathy. I’m guessing it’s partly post Covid but feels like something is fundamentally changing in our culture. Or it could be that me and my circle are our 40s now!
- mytailorisrich 2y agoThe UK's economy has been stagnant since the financial crisis and the inflation since Covid has not been matched by salary increases... So all in all things are looking down, which is obviously not good for motivation. A pay cut for remote can make sense. If you're in the South East and need to commute into London you can sometimes take a £10k pay cut for remote and see no change in income in the end because of the massive saving in train fares. But this means that at least I am definitely looking for more money!
- squishington 2y agoThis guy is worth following for commentary on the situation in the UK economy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeH5UXYEzPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeH5UXYEzPE
- esel2k 2y agoEuropean and 40 now as well. I think it is threefold: A) Age - I realise that the career I did set out for is not that glamorous as I thought (airport travel is not fun anymore, climbing the ladder is even more of sandwich/impostor syndrome, etc) B) Cost of living is so high in cities that you better optimise either where you live (parents for kids, stay in subsidised appartment or buy with a good deal, probably for remote work). So you make sure you have time for DIY instead if beeing consumed by your job… C) Layoffs - everywhere. The gras is not greener on the other side. So better to just “do your (minimal) work” while you can, fly under the radar and enjoy life on the side (hobbies, family etc).
- divbzero 2y agoTo expand on the headline: US employee engagement in 2024 was 31% which was tied with the lowest in the past decade (since 2014) but also higher than at any point in the preceding decade (2000 – 2013). Lowest engagement was 26% in 2000 and 2005. Peak engagement was 36% in 2020. (Sample size was ~80,000 working adults. Sampling error was ±0.5 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.)
- senordevnyc 2y agoSo basically this number just goes up and down with economic cycles, we’re at a midpoint when you look at the last quarter century, and everyone in this thread declaring that it’s because of AI or COVID or how “corporations have no loyalty anymore!” (as if that’s changed much in the last few decades) are probably wrong. Got it.
- worldsayshi 2y agoeconomic and real wars, climate change, dropping fertility, dropping engagement. we need to get better
- KaiserPro 2y agoTime to break out the emergency pizza party! But seriously, anyone below genX has not been in a situation where "caring" employers are the norm. In the march for growth, one of the easier things to do is cut employee benefits. That can have a corrosive effect on culture. "The company is just about cheapest possible, why should I both putting the extra in" Thats even before we get to profit sharing. Bonuses were a thing, and your manager's manager was only on maybe +50-70% of what you were on. In short, if you want engagement, you're gonna need to invest in it. Evening out the wage bands, providing decent incentives, paying your staff to care and rooting out bad actors. but culture change is hard.
- smatija 2y agoWhen I worked my first job (physical work in water service) we had 2 sayings: "minimum wage, minimum effort" and "you cannot lower my salary more than I can lower my effort".
- mitch-crn 2y ago[flagged]
- seydor 2y agoSo the campaign to terrorize everyone with upcoming AI-induced obsolescence, and the trillions of dollars spent to that aim, are working.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoWell, this starts at the top. Treat people with respect, pay them decently (it doesn’t need to be MANGA crazy), and promote good management. We would probably be shocked at how engagement, morale, productivity, and deliverable Quality go up. When the only carrot is money, you’re just going to get short-term mercenaries that don’t care about what they do, who they work for, who they work with, and bounce from job to job; doing terrible work (even if they are quite capable of doing good work).
- bobheadmaker 2y agothis is so true
- polotics 2y agoMy experience has been that once the mercenary ethics has been established, it is not so much that people do not care, which would be bad enough, it also is that they care a lot about number one, and will push in every possible way towards individual profit a the expense of the collective. The amount of wilful obfuscation and self-interest-maximizing collusion and grift severely weakens the host. Then comes private equity to suck the carcass dry.
- fendy3002 2y agoThe cause of efficiency. The most efficient employee, in the eyes of companies, are those who do their job well, need little effort to maintain, and cheap. All of them resulting in minimum effort, minimum wage worker that just get the job done without additional effort. And when companies can layoff employees easily and have no retirement / loyalty bonus program, it cements the minimum effort effect.
- theshrike79 2y agoEmployers don't engage with employees, why should it go the other way? Anecdote time: My uncle went straight from school to work for the local factory. The factory gave him a low-cost loan the factory backed, he built a house with it. Paid the loan back in record time (because of the low interest). He did get laid off once and had to work in a factory one town over (same company still), but when the economy picked up he came back to the same factory. He retired from there some years ago, ever had the one employer, but they took good care of him and he returned it with loyalty to the company. --- If companies were loyal to employees in ways other than just fancy words ("we are family here"), people would be more likely to be loyal to companies. Now the only way to get a proper raise is to switch jobs. The best way to get a better salary/title at your current job is to leave to another company for a year or two or come back. New employees fresh out of school get paid same or better than people who have been there for a decade. Why would anyone work hard in those situations?
- eptcyka 2y agoDid your uncle live in a post WWII western country? The cluster of countries that saw a massive amount of economic development during the last half a century? Could it be that since western countries have largely plateaued in terms of growth and have fallen behind China that the same countries will struggle to provide the same quality of life as they once did? I am not discounting corporate greed, but I would like to point out that it is only getting harder to employ ethically, and it is only getting harder to compete as a business without optimizing for short term gains and fully exploiting any and all resources because of that. I think we have failed ourselves through misgovernance in the past 30 years to let ourselves fall behind the industrial behemoths that will not allow their own middle class to flourish, and, once they plateau, to flounder.
- surgical_fire 2y ago> I am not discounting corporate greed, but I would like to point out that it is only getting harder to employ ethically It is only getting harder to employ ethically because of corporate greed. Stock market valuations and profitablity has been very high for quite a while, but employees are treated like shit nonetheless.
- truckerbill 2y agoA guess: If you could ask a (nice) djinn to make rent-seeking businesses disappear - those with net negative real productivity -> happiness generation - society would bounce back. That includes real estate / landlordism, sorry! Many people aren't motivated by the absolute number in their bank account. But we're taking away their security in the form of precarious living situations, which is a universal need.
- mike503 2y agoCEO outrage, politicians, corporations and the rich getting away with everything, hearing AI is being explored to replace you in the next few years, it's no wonder.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- locopati 2y agoWait you're telling me that people don't care about their jobs as their realize how much their companies don't care about them? Service industry corporations making scheduling systems that make their employees lives unnecessarily hard and also providing no or limited benefits. Companies that could be remote forcing employees to RTO as a power play. CEOs proudly announcing that AI will let them stop hiring. The social contract is entirely broken in the US. The law does not apply equally. The rigging is being exposed.
- pjc50 2y ago> The law does not apply equally. A neat cherry was placed on top of that by confirming that being elected president cancels sentences for crimes carried out before becoming president.
- surgical_fire 2y agoEngagement is a 2-way street. Employers treat employees at best as disposable and replaceable. At worst employers are outright hostile to employees (RTO, layoffs, etc). Yes, what you get in return is a disengaged, and sometimes adversarial workforce. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
- polotics 2y agoIs this not to be expected? Peter Thiel with his famous "Competition is for loosers" has I think captured something essential about the Zeitgeist: if you are being set up to compete, then you are being set up to fail in a rigged game. And come on it can't be that bad! I have seen Larry's Musashi ship and Jeff's Koru, anyone who can afford a $500'000'000.- ticket for sailing the blue seas is sure to treat their employees well enough so that they can afford to take a break to pee and not have to use a plastic bottle, right? It does makes sense as Jeff wrote his success was: “half luck, half good timing, and the rest brains!”
- gilbetron 2y agoI think there's two main things at play that people don't usually mention. Many of the things commonly mentioned, I agree with: waking up to the "game", RTO, layoffs, wealth inequality, etc. But I also see people can get profound entertainment elsewhere. Tiktok, games, social media, etc. It used to be really hard to be social, you had to go somewhere, including work, to interact with people. Now, you can interact in myriad ways online. Yes, it is different, and there are downsides, but it is easy, which is a huge upside, and you can focus on exactly what you want. In the 90s if you were into some obscure hobby, your choices were extremely limited. Now you can get easy interaction with fans of the niche of the niche. Again, not without its downsides. Life used to be pretty boring, speaking as a guy in his 50s. The 1980s and 1990s were ok if you were into mainstream stuff, but you had to abide by the culture or be rejected. It was pretty boring, and now you can find so much interesting stuff it is awesome. But also a bit lonely at times. Still, not nearly as lonely as it used to be. Work was an outlet to be around people. Now I don't care that much about doing that. And it gave you something to do. Less so these days. Second, things are really changing anymore. I think about the past 10 years and largely my life is almost identical, which is bizarre compared to the 4 decades before that. I look around my room (home office), and everything is a bit nicer, but we have LCD displays, and laptops, and webcams, and all this stuff around me that is just like what I used to have. Compare 2015 to 2005 and it is quite different. 2005 was all CRTs and desktop computers that were loud and slow. No social media, the Internet was useful but not omnipresent. Movie theaters and CDs and DVDs were everywhere. If you wanted to interact with people, you called them or got together. Very different life. 1995 was, of course, way different as well. Now, the future seems done, in a way. And that bleeds into work, I don't hear about anyone really building anything new and exciting. Just things getting better and cheaper (except housing!). AI is a thing, but it is terrifying. Either it is a bubble and will smash the economy, or it will take over work and is terrifying, or it will go Terminator and is terrifying. Sure, there may be a more golden Culture-esque universe, and I'm hoping for that. Still, it doesn't feel like we as a people have much say in that, just some disgustingly rich asshats competing with each other for our future.
- drawkward 2y agowe learned that the rat race is, in fact, a rat race; many of us are choosing to opt out via "quiet quitting" or never engaging in the first place. Free time has more utility than money, after a point.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y agoI can only speak for myself of course, but from discussions with friends + co-workers I trust, I think there's subset of people working in software professions that are questioning the viability of these careers in the long run. Considering the now high level of difficultly of finding a new job, paired with the constant psychological warfare of every CEO boldly announcing that "Agents" are going to do all the programming work, plus the recent talks of off-shoring (not to mention seeing a majority of openings in other countries) are forcing the "hard conversations" to be had. Can't imagine people are thrilled with their prospects.
- RestlessMind 2y ago> plus the recent talks of off-shoring I agree with all the factors you cited. On this specific one though, it is on the stupidity of American workers enamored by remote working and couldn't think one step ahead. If your job can be done from Kansas, it is a matter of time before it is shipped off to Colombia. Coldhearted profit maximizing nature of Capitalism will ensure that. The only people in the US who should be rooting for remote work are superstars with truly rare software talents, execs who have made it or shareholders. For the remaining plebs, there is a very small window to wake up and go to offices. And make sure remote work fails massively. That's your only moat to keep these good jobs in the US. I myself warned about that multiple times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27696235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27696235 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29784222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29784222
- nyarlathotep_ 2y agoZero argument here. I made a comment elsewhere here about how short-sighted programmers and the like are. Cheering for working in your sweatpants and how much you're "getting done" with whatever LLM editor, totally oblivious what they're supporting, courting a future of reduced wages and dramatically increased competition. I genuinely believe a large portion of the software types let the "engineer" titles and inflated compensation go to their heads, and they earnestly believed writing CRUD made them irreplaceable. Sad times.
- speckx 2y agoI feel like this is the dot.com bubble all over, but instead it's AI and WFH.