American employees are currently experiencing significant pessimism regarding the future, with their optimism dwindling to levels even lower than during the height of the pandemic. According to recent research conducted by LinkedIn, the U.S. worker confidence score for February has plummeted to an unprecedented low of +24. This score marks a considerable decline from April 2020 and represents a sharp nine-point drop from January’s confidence levels.
The report attributes this growing anxiety to a decelerating job market, the potential ramifications of new economic policies, and concerns about how artificial intelligence might affect human employment. Drew McCaskill, a career expert at LinkedIn, explains to Fortune that this trend reflects workers’ feelings of powerlessness in changing their financial circumstances, which in turn diminishes their confidence in their own stability.
The job market, which just years ago favored job seekers who often secured substantial wage increases by changing roles, has shifted dramatically. Opportunities for workers have largely diminished, evidenced by a nearly 70% increase in the number of applicants per open job on LinkedIn since 2022, alongside a 3.4% decline in hiring from February 2024 to February 2025. McCaskill highlights that the influx of recently dismissed federal employees searching for new opportunities may further strain the market, while uncertainty persists regarding the private sector’s capacity to absorb these roles.
The current landscape is described as an employer’s marketplace by McCaskill, exacerbating financial concerns among employees. Confidence in improving their financial situation within six months has plummeted to +15, lower than April 2020’s score of +16, marking a record low for this specific metric.
While job seekers face considerable challenges in the current hiring environment, McCaskill notes that hiring managers and HR leaders also feel the pressure. This group, having a plethora of candidates to choose from, confronts an abundance of applications while also attempting to meet elevated expectations from their superiors to recruit the highest-caliber talent. This scenario is leading to disruptions in the job hiring process. McCaskill remarks that recruiters are inundated, resulting in job seekers not receiving responses to their applications.
This analysis was originally presented on Fortune.com by Sara Braun, who can be contacted at sara.braun@fortune.com.
