In a nutshell: Remember when working in the tech industry all but guaranteed a secure and lucrative career? The industry isn't that rosy these days. According to a new survey, no sector has seen employee confidence fall as much as tech.
Glassdoor's Employee Confidence Index surveys US workers to discover how many feel positive about their companies' six-month outlooks.
The results are far from cheery. The share of employees reporting positive outlooks was down to 44.3% in February, a decline from January's 45.3%. This is despite an acceleration in job gains during January.
Looking at individual sectors, no industry has seen worker confidence drop as fast as tech, which is down 7.1% over the last year. In February 2025, 55% of IT workers had a positive outlook. A year later, that figure is down to 47.8%.
It's understandable why so many in tech aren't optimistic about the future. The original narrative that AI would assist workers and not replace them has recently given way to reality, as companies admit they are making mass layoffs as a result of automation.
Nothing illustrated these concerns better than the layoffs at Block last month. CEO Jack Dorsey announced that almost half of the company's global workforce was being let go because of AI tools, which he claimed allow significantly smaller teams to do more and better work.
Plenty of other companies are going down this same route, including Amazon, Meta, Pinterest, and Autodesk. However, some say AI is being made a scapegoat in these instances, a way of making companies look more efficient and appealing to shareholders and investors.
The pandemic might seem a long way behind us now, but tech workers are still feeling its effects. The massive hiring sprees that companies embarked on during those years as they raced to meet demand left them with an excess of employees.
Amazon has been a prime example of pandemic overhiring. The tech giant has laid off an incredible 57,000 people since the start of 2022, and while execs admit that AI has played a part, the main driver has been the need to cut the number of workers hired during Covid.
Glassdoor notes that the results do not include data from after the Supreme Court struck down much of the Trump administration's tariffs on February 21, which may have provided a short-term boost to worker confidence. It also found that senior-level employee confidence has fallen most over the last year.