Global employee engagement has fallen to the lowest levels since 2020, and choosing not to act now can mean lasting consequences for your business. After declining for the second year in a row, employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, coming with the threat of a high economic cost to businesses. According to the data provided by the trusted analytics firm Gallup, in 2024, this phenomenon of disengagement resulted in an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity globally, which is equivalent to 9% of the global GDP. There are many reasons why employers should care about workplace disengagement, but if nothing else, the cost of low employee engagement provides sufficient reasons to put our thinking caps on and determine how to win back employee trust, focus, and attention.
Global employee engagement levels have fallen to their lowest point since 2020, setting a worrying trend for the future of employment. (Image: Freepik)
The Continued Drop in Global Employee Engagement Is a Worrying Reminder to Pay Attention to the Workforce
Earlier this month, Gallup released its State of the Global Workplace report, and it revealed that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, down from a peak of 23% in 2022. Here, each percentage point of engagement is said to represent around 21 million employees globally. While a peak of 23% isn’t much of a goal post to be proud of, this continued downward trend is worrying as it signals imbalance and unrest among the workforce.
Most HR leaders and management teams may have already noted evidence of stress and disengagement at work, but allowing it to solidify into a long-term issue rather than a brief period of unrest is not ideal.
Is the Job Market Solely to Blame for the Stress and Disengagement at Work?
At first glance, it’s easy to presume that the state of the job market is the sole reason for employee disengagement and their overall disillusionment with work. However, the data suggest that 52% of employees still think it’s a “good time” to find work.
This still leaves us with a significant number of workers who feel otherwise and struggle with the landscape of employment today, but it tells us that job market optimism is on the rise, particularly among on-site employees. For remote workers, matters are not as positive, considering that flexible, off-site roles are slowly disappearing.
What’s also interesting to note is that despite holding the title of the land of opportunities, the United States and Canada witnessed the sharpest decline in job market optimism, along with Australia/New Zealand. This data still gives us only part of the picture of why disengaged employees are growing in number globally.
The Decline of Workplace Engagement Can Be Linked with the Disengagement Among Managers
It’s not groundbreaking to say that leaders and managerial teams have an impact on the employee experience, but Gallup backs the statement up with data. The report linked the global decline in employee engagement with the declining levels of engagement among managers, which saw a five-point drop in 2025, from 27% to 22%.
In the past, by design, managers were required to be more in tune with the business rather than individual contributors, but that gap has narrowed in recent years. The number of managers has also declined, which is expected considering how many businesses have executed strategies to “flatten the hierarchy” and lay off a number of their middle managers.
Despite the shift in attitude towards this section of the workforce, managers are essential to every operation, as it is their involvement and skill that reshape the performance of their team. Employees learn to operate through the guidance of their immediate leaders, whether it comes to AI adoption or workplace etiquette. Without sufficient training, skill-building, and leadership training for managers, the rest of the organization starts to fall behind.
Data on Employee Wellbeing Continues to Paint an Uncertain Picture
Gen Zers want work-life balance, Millennials want well-being support at work, and Gen Xers are hoping to secure healthcare benefits that come in handy as they enter more precarious phases of their life. All workers are united in their desire for employers to prioritize their well-being in the workplace, even if the focal point differs between workers. To this end, global employee well-being showed positive growth for the first time in three years, with 34% of employees being classified as thriving, up by one point from the previous year.
Unfortunately, trends of employee stress and disengagement in the workplace cannot be ignored. These negative emotions associated with the workplace remain higher than pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that there is more work to be done on that front. Data from other studies have shown that the introduction of AI into the workplace has allowed workers to get more done, but workloads are still increasing, and burnout is more likely than ever.
Creating job opportunities and diversifying work may allow workers to feel more fulfilled in the short term, but employees are growing more detached from their employers, and this is not sustainable. The cost of low employee engagement aside, a disengaged workforce means a rise in absenteeism, workplace conflict, subpar work performance, and an overall atmosphere of low interest in the future of a business. With employee engagement hitting its lowest level in years, it’s time for business leaders to turn their attention inwards to better understand the state of their workforce beyond headcount and workload.
Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights on workplace trends, layoffs, and what to expect with the advent of AI.
