The State of Employee Engagement 2026

Employee engagement entered 2026 at its weakest point in over a decade. In the United States, just 31% of employees were engaged at work in 2024, a 10-year low, while only 20% of the global workforce was engaged in 2025, the lowest reading since 2020 (Gallup, 2024; Gallup, 2026). Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the world economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity each year, roughly 9% of global GDP (Gallup, 2023). This report compiles verified, US-authoritative data on engagement levels, burnout, retention, and the outsized role managers play in shaping an engaged workforce.

Key Findings

• 31% of U.S. employees were engaged in 2024, a 10-year low, with 17% actively disengaged (Gallup, 2024).
• Global engagement fell to 20% in 2025, down from 23% in 2023, the first back-to-back annual decline on record (Gallup, 2026).
• Low engagement carries an estimated $8.8 trillion annual cost in lost productivity, about 9% of global GDP (Gallup, 2023).
• Managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, a foundational Gallup finding first established in 2015 and reaffirmed in its recent State of the Global Workplace reporting.
• Global manager engagement dropped from 30% to 22% between 2023 and 2025, the largest year-over-year fall in the series (Gallup, 2026).
• 44% of U.S. employees report feeling burned out at work, and burned-out workers are about three times more likely to be job-hunting (SHRM, 2024).
• The U.S. quits rate stood at 1.9% in April 2026, or 3.0 million quits, down from a 3.0% peak in 2021-22 (BLS JOLTS, 2026).
• Roughly 50% of employees worldwide were watching for or actively seeking a new job in 2024 (Gallup, 2025).

Engagement Levels Hit a 10-Year Low

The headline finding from Gallup research is a sustained slide in engagement on both sides of the data. In the United States, the share of engaged employees fell to 31% in 2024, matching a 10-year low and continuing a downward drift from 36% in 2020 (Gallup, 2024). Engagement here means employees who are involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace, the metric Gallup has used to measure employee engagement across business units for decades.

The U.S. trend line tells the story of a workforce that has quietly detached from organizations since the pandemic peak. Engagement has not recovered to its 2020 level in any subsequent year, and preliminary 2025 data shows it holding flat at 31% rather than rebounding (Gallup, 2025).

• U.S. engagement: 36% in 2020 to 31% in 2024, a 5-point decline (Gallup, 2025).
• U.S. actively disengaged employees: 17% in 2024 (Gallup, 2024).
• That leaves roughly 52% of U.S. workers not engaged, the large middle that is psychologically uncommitted (Gallup, 2024).
• U.S. engagement was preliminarily flat at 31% in 2025 (Gallup, 2025).

Globally, the picture is worse and the direction is the same. The State of the Global Workplace series recorded engagement at 23% in 2023, 21% in 2024, and 20% in 2025, the lowest global engagement rate since 2020 and the first two straight years of decline (Gallup, 2026).

Engagement is not stagnating, it is eroding. Two consecutive years of global decline mark a turning point in the state of the global workplace.

The Anatomy of a Disengaged Workforce

Engagement statistics are easier to interpret when broken into their component parts. Gallup classifies workers as engaged, not engaged, or actively disengaged, and the split between these groups reveals how thin the engaged core has become. In the United States, the engaged 31% is outnumbered by a not-engaged majority, with a meaningful actively disengaged minority that can drag down workplace culture and business outcomes.

At the global level, the engaged share is smaller still. In 2025, only 20% of employees worldwide were engaged, 64% were not engaged, and 16% were actively disengaged (Gallup, 2026). The not-engaged group, sometimes described as quiet quitting, represents the largest opportunity and the largest risk: these employees are present but uncommitted, and they tip toward either engagement or active disengagement depending on the quality of their experience.

• Global 2025 split: 20% engaged, 64% not engaged, 16% actively disengaged (Gallup, 2026).
• U.S. 2024 split: 31% engaged, 52% not engaged, 17% actively disengaged (Gallup, 2024).
• Each 1 percentage point of global engagement represents roughly 21 million employees (Gallup, 2026).

The $8.8 Trillion Cost of Disengagement

The business case for engagement rests on a single, heavily cited figure. Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity each year, equal to about 9% of global GDP (Gallup, 2023). It is the strongest-verified number in the engagement literature and the clearest translation of soft metrics into hard economics.

More recent Gallup analysis puts the figure near $10 trillion in 2025, while holding steady at approximately 9% of GDP, a reminder that the proportional drag on output has not eased even as the absolute number climbs (Gallup, 2026). Lost productivity on this scale is the cumulative result of millions of disengaged and actively disengaged employees producing below their potential across the global workforce.

• $8.8 trillion: annual cost of low engagement in lost productivity, 9% of global GDP (Gallup, 2023).
• ~$10 trillion: updated 2025 estimate, still about 9% of GDP (Gallup, 2026).
• Every 1 point of engagement movement maps to roughly 21 million workers, underscoring the leverage in small shifts (Gallup, 2026).

Managers Make or Break Engagement

If engagement has a single point of leverage, it is the manager. Gallup's foundational finding is that 70% of the variance in team engagement is explained by the manager, a result first established in the State of the American Manager research (Gallup, 2015) and reaffirmed in its subsequent State of the Global Workplace reporting. No other workplace factor comes close to that explanatory power, which makes manager engagement the leading indicator for the rest of the workforce.

That is why the recent collapse in manager engagement is the most concerning trend in the data. Global manager engagement fell from 30% in 2023 to 27% in 2024 and then to 22% in 2025, a 5-point single-year drop that is the largest in the series (Gallup, 2026). When the people responsible for 70% of team engagement disengage, the effect cascades to their teams.

• Manager engagement fell from 30% (2023) to 22% (2025) globally (Gallup, 2026).
• The 2024-to-2025 drop of 5 points was the steepest year-over-year decline recorded (Gallup, 2026).
• U.S. managers engaged in 2024: 31% (Gallup, 2024).
• Sharpest 2023-to-2024 declines came from female managers (-7 points) and managers under 35 (-5 points) (Gallup, 2024).

Managers carry 70% of the variance in team engagement. When manager engagement fell to 22%, the engagement crisis stopped being a frontline problem and became a leadership one.

Burnout and Wellbeing Under Strain

Engagement and wellbeing move together, and both are under pressure. Globally, 41% of employees reported experiencing a lot of stress the previous day, while only 34% were thriving in their overall lives (Gallup, 2024). The United States and Canada region carries the heaviest daily stress load of any region in the world.

• Global daily stress: 41% reported a lot of stress yesterday (Gallup, 2024).
• Global thriving: 34% rated their lives highly enough to be thriving (Gallup, 2024).
• U.S. and Canada region 2024: 50% daily stress, the highest of any region, with 52% thriving (Gallup, 2025).
• U.S. burnout: 44% of employees feel burned out at work (SHRM, 2024).

Burnout is where wellbeing and retention intersect. SHRM finds that 44% of U.S. employees feel burned out at work, and that burned-out workers are about three times more likely to be job-hunting, with 45% looking for a new role compared with 16% of those who are not burned out (SHRM, 2024).

Retention, Turnover, and the Cost of Replacement

Disengagement and burnout eventually show up in turnover intentions, even when actual quitting has cooled. The U.S. quits rate was 1.9% in April 2026, representing 3.0 million quits, down from 2.0% in March 2026 and well below the 3.0% peak of the 2021-22 Great Resignation (BLS JOLTS, 2026). A lower quits rate reflects a more cautious labor market, not a more engaged one.

Beneath the cooler quits rate sits substantial latent turnover risk. About half of employees worldwide were watching for or actively seeking a new job in 2024, meaning the intent to leave remains elevated even where action has paused (Gallup, 2025). The cost of acting on that intent is significant: estimates of the cost to replace an employee range from 0.5x to 2x annual salary in Gallup's framing, and from 50% to 200% in SHRM's, depending on role and seniority.

• U.S. quits rate: 1.9% in April 2026, 3.0 million quits (BLS JOLTS, 2026).
• Roughly 50% of employees worldwide were watching for or seeking a new job in 2024 (Gallup, 2025).
• Replacement cost: 0.5x to 2x annual salary (Gallup), or 50% to 200% (SHRM).

What Actually Drives Engagement

The engagement elements that matter most are also the ones eroding fastest. Between March 2020 and 2024, the share of U.S. employees who strongly agree that they know what is expected of them fell from 56% to 46%, a 10-point drop in the single most basic condition for productive work (Gallup, 2024). Relational and developmental drivers slid in parallel.

• Know what is expected: 56% to 46%, a 10-point fall (Gallup, 2024).
• Someone cares about me as a person: 47% to 39% (Gallup, 2024).
• Someone encourages my development: 36% to 30% (Gallup, 2024).
• Employees who receive great recognition are 20x as likely to be engaged (Gallup/Workhuman, 2024).

Employee recognition stands out as a high-leverage, underused driver. Gallup and Workhuman find that employees who receive great recognition are 20 times as likely to be engaged, a multiplier that few employee experience investments can match (Gallup/Workhuman, 2024).

Demographics, Remote Work, and Flexible Arrangements

Engagement losses are not evenly distributed. Younger workers and certain work models carry disproportionate risk, which has implications for how organizations design flexible work arrangements and target retention efforts.

• U.S. employees under 35 saw engagement fall 5 points year over year, a sharper drop than older cohorts (Gallup, 2024).
• Job-seeking by work model: 57% of fully remote employees were watching for or seeking a new job, versus 45% of on-site, remote-capable employees (Gallup, 2024-2025).
• Hybrid workers show the highest engagement of the three arrangements, a directional finding across Gallup's remote and hybrid work research (Gallup).

The pattern for Gen Z employees and other under-35 workers matters because they represent the future engaged workforce, and their steeper decline signals weaker attachment early in their careers. On work model, the higher job-seeking rate among fully remote employees points to the importance of intentional connection, recognition, and development for distributed teams, rather than to remote work itself as a cause of disengagement.

The data points to a consistent conclusion: engagement is built through clear expectations, genuine care, development opportunities, and recognition, and it is eroding precisely where those fundamentals have weakened.

Related reading

Methodology & Sources

This report is a curation of published data from authoritative U.S. and global sources. Engagement, manager, and wellbeing figures are drawn from Gallup, including the annual State of the Global Workplace series and Gallup's U.S. engagement tracking. Gallup reports prior-year data, so the 2026 report reflects 2025 data, the 2025 report reflects 2024 data, and the 2024 report reflects 2023 data; figures are labeled by data year where relevant. Gallup maintains a separate U.S.-only engagement series alongside its global measures.

Burnout figures are sourced from SHRM research (2024, n=1,405). Turnover and quits-rate data are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), reflecting April 2026 readings. Recognition data is attributed to Gallup and Workhuman joint research (2024). Every statistic in this report carries its source and data year inline; where sources differ, such as replacement-cost estimates, the full range is shown rather than a single figure.

No figures were modeled, extrapolated, or estimated by the publisher. Where a value could not be sourced to a primary publication, the related claim was omitted to preserve the integrity of the dataset.

• Gallup, State of the Global Workplace (2024, 2025, 2026 reports) and U.S. engagement series
• Gallup, State of the American Manager (2015)
• Gallup and Workhuman, recognition research (2024)
• SHRM, employee burnout research (2024)
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS (2026)