Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its second consecutive annual decline and the lowest reading since 2020. The steepest fall did not come from frontline workers: manager engagement dropped nine points in three years to 22%. Gallup puts the productivity cost of the gap at $10 trillion, roughly 9% of global GDP. Meanwhile wellbeing moved the other way, with global thriving up one point to 34%. The figures below come from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, which surveys employees in more than 140 countries.
TL;DR
- Global engagement was 20% in 2025, down from a 23% peak (Gallup)
- It was the first two-year consecutive decline on record (Gallup)
- Manager engagement fell to 22%, from 27% in 2024 (Gallup)
- That is a nine-point drop since 2022 (Gallup)
- Non-managers sat at 19%, below managers but falling less (Gallup)
- Lost productivity is estimated at $10 trillion (Gallup)
- That equals about 9% of global GDP (Gallup)
- Europe has the world’s lowest engagement at 12% (Gallup)
- The US and Canada lead at 31% (Gallup)
- Global thriving rose to 34%, up one point (Gallup)
- 40% of employees felt stress a lot of the prior day (Gallup)
- US engagement hit a 10-year low of 31% in 2024 (Gallup)
- Only 46% of US employees know what is expected of them (Gallup)
- Best-practice organizations reach 79% manager engagement (Gallup)
1. The Global Number Fell Again
Two consecutive annual declines is the part that makes 2025 different. Engagement has drifted before, but the fall from 23% to 20% across two years is the first back-to-back drop in the series, which removes the usual “single bad year” explanation.
The 20% figure means four in five employees worldwide are either coasting or actively working against their employer’s interests. Gallup’s $10 trillion estimate translates that into economic terms, but the more useful reading is the ratio: the engaged minority carries the discretionary effort for everyone else. Note that the report is titled 2026 while the fieldwork covers 2025, a convention that trips up a lot of secondary coverage.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global engagement, 2025 | 20% | Gallup |
| Peak engagement, 2022–2023 | 23% | Gallup |
| Consecutive years of decline | 2 | Gallup |
| Employees not fully engaged | 80% | Derived from Gallup figures |
| Estimated lost productivity | $10 trillion | Gallup |
| Share of global GDP | approx. 9% | Gallup |
| Countries surveyed | 140+ | Gallup |
Source: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026.
2. Managers Took the Steepest Fall
The group that fell hardest is the group every engagement program depends on. Manager engagement went from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025, a nine-point decline, including a five-point drop in a single year.
Two subgroups fell faster than the average: managers under 35 and women managers, the latter down seven points. That matters because both groups are over-represented in the pipelines companies use to fill senior roles. The counterweight in the same data is the 79% manager engagement Gallup records in organizations following its best practices, which says the ceiling is not the problem — the median is.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Manager engagement, 2025 | 22% | Gallup |
| Manager engagement, 2024 | 27% | Gallup |
| Manager engagement, 2022 | 31% | Gallup |
| Three-year decline | 9 points | Gallup |
| Non-manager engagement | 19% | Gallup |
| Managers under 35, change | down 5 points | Gallup |
| Women managers, change | down 7 points | Gallup |
| Best-practice organizations | 79% | Gallup |
Managers absorbed hybrid logistics, restructuring, and AI rollouts at work simultaneously, usually without added headcount.
Source: HR Dive on Gallup’s manager engagement findings.
3. The Regional Spread Is Wider Than the Trend
Regional variation dwarfs the global movement. Engagement ranges from 12% in Europe to 31% in the United States and Canada — a 19-point spread against a global average that moved three points in three years.
Reading these as a ranking of workforce quality is the standard mistake. Gallup’s items ask about workplace conditions, and cultural response styles differ systematically across regions, so the gap between Europe and North America reflects both real management practice and measurement effects that nobody has cleanly separated.
| Region | Engagement | Source |
|---|---|---|
| United States and Canada | 31% | Gallup |
| Latin America and Caribbean | 30% | Gallup |
| Post-Soviet Eurasia | 25% | Gallup |
| Southeast Asia | 25% | Gallup |
| South Asia | 21% | Gallup |
| Australia and New Zealand | 21% | Gallup |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 19% | Gallup |
| East Asia | 18% | Gallup |
| Middle East and North Africa | 14% | Gallup |
| Europe | 12% | Gallup |
Source: Gallup, regional and country data 2026.
4. Wellbeing Moved the Opposite Way
Engagement and wellbeing are separate measures, and 2025 is the year that separation became impossible to ignore. Global thriving rose to 34% while engagement fell to 20%, so the workforce reported feeling better about life overall while being less involved in the work itself.
Regionally the two measures barely track each other. Latin America and the Caribbean posts 56% thriving on 30% engagement, its highest wellbeing in over a decade. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia sit at 18% and 16% thriving, the lowest globally, despite South Asia’s engagement being above the global average.
| Region | Thriving | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Latin America and Caribbean | 56% | Gallup |
| Australia and New Zealand | 55% | Gallup |
| United States and Canada | 51% | Gallup |
| Europe | 49% | Gallup |
| Southeast Asia | 36% | Gallup |
| Post-Soviet Eurasia | 34% | Gallup |
| East Asia | 32% | Gallup |
| Middle East and North Africa | 26% | Gallup |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 18% | Gallup |
| South Asia | 16% | Gallup |
| Global thriving | 34% | Gallup |
Source: Gallup, regional and country data 2026.
5. Daily Emotions Stayed Above Pre-Pandemic Levels
Gallup asks whether respondents felt specific emotions during a lot of the previous day, which produces a sharper signal than general satisfaction questions. 40% of employees worldwide said yes to stress, and the negative emotion set has not returned to where it sat before 2020.
The United States and Canada report roughly 50% daily stress, well above the global figure, while Europe runs below average on every negative emotion and still records the world’s lowest engagement. That combination is the clearest evidence that engagement is not simply a proxy for how people feel.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Daily stress, global | 40% | Gallup |
| Daily sadness, global | 23% | Gallup |
| Daily anger, global | 22% | Gallup |
| Daily loneliness, global | 22% | Gallup |
| Daily stress, US and Canada | approx. 50% | Gallup |
| Daily loneliness, US | 19% | Gallup |
| Daily stress, Europe | 39% | Gallup |
| Daily loneliness, Europe | 13% | Gallup |
Workplace isolation tracks closely with the broader loneliness data, which has its own measurement debate.
Source: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026.
6. What Actually Broke in the US Numbers
Gallup’s separate US series shows which specific conditions eroded, and it is not the abstract stuff. The share of US employees who strongly agree they know what is expected of them fell to 46%, down from 56% in March 2020. Role clarity is the most basic item in the instrument.
Two other items fell in parallel: feeling that someone at work cares about you as a person, and having someone who encourages your development. Employees under 35 fell five points in a single year, faster than any other age group. US engagement reached a 10-year low of 31% in 2024, with actively disengaged workers at 17%.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US engagement, 2024 | 31% | Gallup |
| US engagement, 2023 | 33% | Gallup |
| US engagement peak, 2020 | 36% | Gallup |
| Actively disengaged, 2024 | 17% | Gallup |
| Know what is expected | 46% (was 56%) | Gallup |
| Someone cares about me | 39% (was 47%) | Gallup |
| Someone encourages development | 30% (was 36%) | Gallup |
| Under-35 engagement change | down 5 points | Gallup |
The clarity collapse coincides with the period covered by remote work and return-to-office policy churn.
Source: Gallup, US employee engagement sinks to 10-year low.
7. Job Confidence and the AI Question
Employees’ read on the labor market barely moved globally but collapsed in specific regions. Global optimism about finding a job sat at 52%, up one point, while the United States and Canada fell 10 points to 47% — and 23 points below its 2019 level.
The AI numbers are more measured than the discourse. 18% of US employees expect their role to be eliminated within five years, rising to 23% in organizations that have already implemented AI. That is a real gap, but it is a minority view in both groups, and the more immediate pressure in the data is managerial load rather than displacement.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global job optimism | 52% | Gallup |
| Change year over year | up 1 point | Gallup |
| US and Canada optimism | 47% | Gallup |
| Change year over year | down 10 points | Gallup |
| Change since 2019 | down 23 points | Gallup |
| Australia and New Zealand | down 12 points | Gallup |
| US expecting job eliminated in 5 years | 18% | Gallup |
| Same, in AI-implementing organizations | 23% | Gallup |
Source: Personnel Today on the Gallup engagement decline.
Summary: Employee Engagement by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global engagement, 2025 | 20% | Gallup |
| Peak, 2022–2023 | 23% | Gallup |
| Manager engagement | 22% | Gallup |
| Manager engagement, 2022 | 31% | Gallup |
| Manager three-year decline | 9 points | Gallup |
| Non-managers | 19% | Gallup |
| Women managers, change | down 7 points | Gallup |
| Best-practice organizations | 79% | Gallup |
| Lost productivity | $10 trillion | Gallup |
| Share of global GDP | approx. 9% | Gallup |
| Highest region (US and Canada) | 31% | Gallup |
| Lowest region (Europe) | 12% | Gallup |
| Global thriving | 34% | Gallup |
| Highest thriving (Latin America) | 56% | Gallup |
| Lowest thriving (South Asia) | 16% | Gallup |
| Daily stress, global | 40% | Gallup |
| Daily loneliness, global | 22% | Gallup |
| US engagement, 2024 | 31% | Gallup |
| US actively disengaged | 17% | Gallup |
| US role clarity | 46% | Gallup |
| Global job optimism | 52% | Gallup |
Methodology and Sources
- Global engagement, wellbeing, emotion, and job-optimism figures come from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, which covers 2025 fieldwork across more than 140 countries (main report page).
- Region-by-region engagement and thriving percentages come from Gallup’s companion regional dataset (2026 regional and country data).
- United States series figures, including the 10-year low and the individual survey items, come from Gallup’s separate US release (US engagement sinks to 10-year low).
- Manager subgroup breakdowns and the decline framing were corroborated against trade coverage of the same report (HR Dive, Personnel Today).
- Data watch: the report is published as 2026 but measures 2025, so every figure here is a 2025 reading unless stated otherwise. Global and US series are not interchangeable — the global instrument and the US instrument use different sampling and the US figure quoted for 2024 is not comparable to the US-and-Canada regional figure for 2025. The $10 trillion cost is a modeled estimate derived from engagement data, not measured output, and Gallup has published different absolute figures in prior years as its model and base year changed. Subgroup breakdowns for managers under 35 and women managers, and the daily emotion splits by region, appear in the full report and its press coverage rather than on Gallup’s public summary pages. Engagement measures involvement and enthusiasm, not satisfaction, which is why it can fall in a year when thriving rises. Rows marked as derived are arithmetic on published Gallup figures.
- Last updated: August 14, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next major refresh is expected when Gallup publishes its next US engagement release.