Employee Confidence Increasing in United States

It is always important for employees to have confidence in what they do during the workday because it means they will do their job correctly and efficiently each day of the year. Unbelievably, in today’s world, there is a survey that determines how confident the United States employees are in their jobs right now. The survey that measures employee confidence is known as the Randstad Employee Confidence Index, which increased to 45.6 points in October, an increase of 0.8 points. The increase can be attributed to those workers who are comfortable in their current job situation but are also optimistic about the economy and where it is headed.

Joanie Ruge, the senior vice president and chief employment analyst for Randstad Holding U.S., had the following to say in a statement:

“Worker confidence in the economy and in the job market continues its sluggish climb back to higher levels this month. Results from our Employee Confidence Index mirror the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey, which showed improvement for the second month in a row. It appears that many businesses and consumers alike are feeling uncertain in terms of a recovery in the near term due to mixed economic signals. While we anticipate modest growth for the remainder of this year, we are optimistic that we will see healthier hiring activity in 2012–albeit slow-moving. This is particularly beneficial for the temporary staffing sector as many companies rely on these services to maintain a flexible headcount, and to locate hard-to-find skill sets in the recovery process. We are also seeing growth in permanent placement positions and expect this trend to continue heading into the New Year.”

The survey was conducted over the internet by Harris Interactive, which was done on the behalf of Randstad. The survey took place from October 10-12, 2011 and involved 1,219 U.S. adults 18 and over. Another major reason for the excitement is that only 51 percent of United States workers feel that the economy has gotten worse, which is a decrease by two percentage points since September. In the October report, 12 percent of adults who were employed believed that there were more jobs available compared to the nine percent in September.

The indicator for workers who are confident in their employer remained the same in October as it was in September, at 60 percent. What did rise one percentage point from September to October was that 36 percent of U.S. workers have confidence that they will be able to find a new job.

A decrease of one percentage point from September to October was that 68 percent of U.S. employees feel that they will not lose their jobs within the next 12 months. A statistic that increased from September to October was that 34 percent of workers will more than likely look for a new job within the next 12 months, which is up from 32 percent.