U.S. workers' confidence has dropped by two points since January, according to LinkedIn's most recent Workforce Confidence survey.
The platform's market research team surveyed 78,988 U.S. professionals from March 11, 2023 to April 5, 2024, and scored their confidence on a scale from -100 to +100.
Workforce confidence has been on the decline year over year, according to the survey. Workers' confidence that they will find a new job or be able to keep their current one has decreased four points since March 2023, while their confidence that they will progress in their careers this year has dropped three points.
This pessimism is especially pronounced amongst unemployed Americans. Although this population reported a confidence score of +12 in January — increasingly believing that they could find and hold a job — their confidence has since decreased to -2. Analysts attribute the sharp decline to the leveling out of new-year optimism, and continued concerns about inflation and layoffs.