Global Employee Engagement Is Trending in the Wrong Direction

Global employee engagement declined to 20% in 2025 (versus 21% in 2024), according to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, released Wednesday, April 8. This decline from a 2022 peak of 23% marked the first time back-to-back years of falling engagement have occurred since the research firm’s annual report began tracking the metric in 2009.

While the long-term trend remains positive — up 8 percentage points since 2009 — the recent downturn underscores a critical shift in workplace dynamics.

The Productivity Gap

Most organizations and HR professionals acknowledge the high cost of disengagement. Gallup’s cumulative research, though, put it into clearer perspective. Highlight statistics from the new report show:

• In 2024 alone, low engagement resulted in an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, equivalent to 9% of global gross domestic product (GDP).
• With each percentage point representing roughly 21 million employees, the 3% drop from 2022 to 2025 suggests more than 60 million workers have become disengaged in just three years.

The decline in 2025 was geographically universal, with no world region showing improvement. South Asia suffered the most significant blow, seeing a 5-point drop in overall engagement.

The U.S. and Canada region continued to report the world’s highest employee engagement, at 31%. Within the region, U.S. workers (32%) remain much more engaged than their Canadian counterparts (21%).

However, not all is rosy in North America. American and Canadian workers expressed some of the lowest optimism on the job market. Forty-seven percent of survey respondents from these countries agreed it is a good time to find a job — near a historic low for the region. Since the previous three-year rolling average, optimism has declined sharply in both the U.S. (down 10 points to 46%) and Canada (down 16 points to 51%).

The Manager Squeeze

Gallup’s research pointed to managers as the primary driver of the global engagement slump. Specific findings include:

• The downward trend for leaders is alarming. Since 2022, manager engagement has fallen by 9 points, dropping to 22% in 2025.
• The hierarchy-based gap has vanished. Historically, managers were significantly more engaged than their teams. Today, they are no more engaged than individual contributors.
• Flattening is a factor. In South Asia, a reduction in the number of managers — likely due to “organizational flattening” — has correlated with an 8-point decline in manager engagement.

AI and the Future of Management

Despite these declines, managers remain essential to the future of work — particularly in activating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) within their departments and teams. Therefore, for such efforts to be successful, it is likely critical for organizations to address these leaders’ engagement.

“This report establishes a global baseline for management effectiveness in the AI era,” said Gallup CEO Jon Clifton. “Businesses are investing heavily in AI, but the results are not showing up in the bottom line. Gallup’s data points to an answer the corporate world has largely ignored: the manager.”

Well-Being on the Rise, But Pressure Remains

The report also showed global workforce well-being improved for the first time in three years, with 34% of workers classified as thriving, up 1 percentage point from 2024. Gains were led by increases in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Europe.

However, daily negative emotions remain elevated compared with pre-pandemic levels, suggesting a lasting shift in how workers experience work and life.

Surveyed leaders reported higher overall well-being and engagement than individual contributors, but they are significantly more likely to experience daily stress, anger, sadness and loneliness. Despite these challenges, engagement serves as a protective force: Engaged managers reported lower levels of negative emotions and are substantially more likely to be thriving than their less engaged peers.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

For more information and resources related to this article, see the pages below, which offer quick access to all WorldatWork content on these topics:

• Well-Being
• Workforce Engagement