US workers increasingly trapped in the 'Great Detachment' as hiring slows, report shows
Globally, 51% of workers are optimistic about finding quality work, but US sentiment has plunged since 2022
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A new report from Gallup finds that U.S. workers are less optimistic about the job climate and their level of engagement with their current jobs has remained relatively flat.
Gallup released its 2026 State of the Global Workplace report on Wednesday, which showed that while 51% of global workers think it's a good time to find a quality job, the sentiment among U.S. workers declined to 28% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
That figure represents a notable decline from 46% in the fourth quarter of 2024, continuing a steep downward trend from the 70% reading in the second quarter of 2022.
"Folks with degrees, they're having a particularly difficult time finding a job," Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace management and well-being for Gallup, told FOX Business. "So there's really a kind of interesting dynamic going on right now where unemployment is fairly low, it's on the uptick a little bit, but hiring isn't happening."
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Gallup's report showed declining engagement among American workers along with lower engagement levels. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
"The job climate, just in terms of people's freedom, they're feeling stuck where they're at. Part of the solution to that is organizations need to get better at driving systems of really solid performance management and good communication between managers and employees," Harter said.
When workers feel stuck and like they don't have a choice about finding another quality job, Harter said that their "engagement will start to drop, and active disengagement will start to go up when people lack choice because they're stuck in jobs that they don't want."
Workers who said they're looking to find a new job reported not getting much of a response even after applying for multiple jobs, Gallup found.
"We do see that people are applying for jobs, but they're just not getting much response. There's just not much out there from a hiring standpoint right now," Harter said. "It's just not a really good time right now on the hiring end and, again, unemployment's fairly low, so people are in jobs – but they're jobs that they don't consider to be high quality jobs."
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Workers who are actively looking for new jobs have struggled to get a response, Harter said. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Harter noted that among respondents who say they have the ability to do multiple things, their perception of the job climate was more favorable.
"I think that there's a big factor in terms of upskilling related to AI that could be a big component of people being able to find jobs going into the future," he added.
The report's findings also demonstrated conditions that Gallup has called the "Great Detachment" in which people are actively looking for work or watching for openings while also reporting low levels of satisfaction with their current employer.
"Even though the employees have less choice in terms of leaving their employer to go somewhere else, there's psychological turnover meaning they're not bringing their whole selves to help the organization improve," Harter said.
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Highly successful organizations have higher levels of engagement among workers, Harter noted. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The report also found that the three-year rolling average of engaged workers declined a point to 31%, with 52% of workers not engaged and 17% actively disengaged. At 31%, the level of engagement among U.S. workers is at its lowest level since 2014, while the share of actively disengaged workers at 17% was also at 2014 levels.
By contrast, Harter said that the top organizations have 70% or more of their employees engaged, along with managers who are engaged to an even greater extent.
"When you look closely at organizations that are really doing a great job right now, they are figuring out ways to get it done," he said. "They actually upskill their managers, they get people into the right managerial role – that helps when you flatten the organization and people can take on a higher span of control as managers. They help people see how their work connects to the bigger purpose of the organization."
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"What we're talking about here is very solvable, but it's an uphill, kind of against-the-wind battle right now where leaders need to be very intentional about what they do with their staff and particularly with their managers and how they get prepared to coach people on a regular basis and help people feel like they're a part of what the overall organization is trying to get done," Harter added.