Employee Confidence Increases

The SFN Group Employee Confidence Index rose by 0.3 points to 49.2 in March. The Index, which measures workers’ confidence in their personal employment situation and optimism in the economic environment, shows that more workers are confident in the strength of the economy and in job availability. In addition, more workers reported an increase in job security. 

“Our Employee Confidence Index has remained pretty stable over the last few months,” said Roy Krause, president and CEO of SFN Group, Inc. “Workers continue to be more personally confident, especially when it comes to considering a job change in the next year. In fact, 50% of 18-34 year olds cite they are likely to do so — higher than any other age group. What this tells us is that employers are not going to be in the driver’s seat for long. Not only are workers taking more control of their careers, but the ways in which they work are changing as a result of this economic recession. Gone are the days when the word ‘temp’ referred to the office secretary or data-entry intern. Today, temporary workers include many highly skilled professionals, ranging from IT, accounting and finance talent, all the way up to office of the CFO. Since September, the U.S. economy has added 313,000 temporary jobs. This number should only increase as more employers look to add greater flexibility to their workforce to avoid the highly disruptive — and highly painful — situation they were in last year when belt tightening forced mass layoffs.”

A Look Inside the Report

Confidence in Macroeconomic Environment:

• Twenty-four percent of U.S. workers believe the economy is getting stronger, up one percentage point from February.


• Sixty-three percent of workers surveyed believe there are fewer jobs available, decreasing four percentage points from the previous month.

Confidence in Personal Employment Situation:

• Thirty-six percent of workers are confident in their ability to find a new job, compared with 38% in February.


• The percentage of workers reporting confidence in the future of their current employers decreased by four percentage points to 60%.

Job Security:

• Seventy-three percent of workers say they are unlikely to lose their jobs in the next year, increasing three percentage points from the previous month.

Confidence by Gender:

• Twenty-six percent of males believe the economy is getting stronger, compared with 21% of females.


• When asked if they are confident in their ability to find a new job, more males reported optimism, with 39% reporting confidence (versus 32% of females).


• Nearly the same percentage of males and females are likely to look for a new job in the next year (34% of males and 35% of females).

Confidence by Age:

• Fifty percent of workers between the ages of 18-34 are likely to look for a new job in the next year. This is the highest among all age brackets.


• Workers aged 45-54 are the most confident in the future of their current employer, with 70% of workers in this age group indicating so.


• According to the latest results, 68% of workers aged 45-54 also believe there are fewer jobs available.

Confidence by Income:

• Workers earning $75K or greater are the most confident in the future of their current employer, with 64% indicating so, compared with 56% of those earning less than $35K.


• Forty-one percent of workers earning less than $35K are the most likely to look for a new job in the next year; while workers earning $50K or more are the least likely.


• Twenty-four percent of workers earning less than $35K believe they are likely to lose their jobs in the next 12 months. This is the highest reading across all income cohorts.

SFN Group (SFN) is a strategic workforce solutions company that provides professional services and general staffing to help businesses more effectively source, deploy and manage people and the work they do. As an industry pioneer, SFN Group has sourced, screened and placed millions of individuals in temporary, temp-to-hire and full-time jobs for more than 60 years.