How Americans View Their Careers

In previous postings, the Trendency team has examined several key aspects of the workforce that have been impacted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, including the time workers spent in the office compared to working from home, the data behind the “Great Resignation,” and what a “good job” means for Americans. In this edition, we are examining general attitudes toward careers for the American public. We have been tracking this since early 2020, and it has been interesting to see the changes in opinions over time among the American workforce.

Trendency’s platform aims to give more power to its participants, so our approach allows people to allocate between multiple answer options instead of choosing just one answer. For example, we measure career happiness by asking what percent of the time people feel positive about their career and what percent of the time they feel negative about their career. This allocation approach gives respondents the ability to provide more nuance to their answers and also allows us to better understand how feelings are shifting over time.

As Americans began to return to the office, average career happiness began to steadily drop throughout the first three quarters of 2022. Then in the final quarter of 2022, sentiment started moving in a positive direction and grew slowly throughout 2023. While these movements were not massive (88% of employees felt positive 50% of the time or more in January of 2022 before hitting a low of 81% in September 2022). 

Interestingly, 2024 has shown a negative trend but at a much quicker rate than what we saw two years ago. In January of this year, 85% of workers reported positive feelings about their careers, but that percentage then dropped seven points throughout the first five months of the year. 

Since averages can sometimes mask changes under the surface, Trendency also looks at the breakdown of how participants allocate their points when they answer these types of questions. In this view, the concentration of those who feel positive about their careers the vast majority of the time (80% of the time or more) has held relatively steady going back to late 2022. The same can be said with those who feel negatively about their career most, if not all, of the time. Typically, this points to smaller incremental changes in opinion vs. jarring shifts.

The “American worker” refers to a big group of people with many differences and experiences that can change the perceptions these people hold. While many variables can be used in analyzing their experiences, there are three that are interesting so far: age, whether or not you have kids in the house, and what type of industry a person works in. 

When it comes to age, there were some unexpected relationships and similarities. Indeed, those under 30 (early career) and those between the ages of 50-59 (late career) experienced changes that tend to run in parallel throughout 2023. However, so far this year, while the direction of the change is similar, the two cohorts are moving at different rates. The most notable decrease has been among those in their 50s (a 13-point decrease in positive feelings) while those under 30 moved in the negative direction at a less dramatic pace. It is worth noting that the conclusion in our report a year ago does not hold water at this point, that the older you are, the more likely you are to feel more positive about your career.

When looking at the distribution of the views workers in these two groups hold, we see that the movement has different sources as well. So far this year, we have seen a drop in those who feel positive about their jobs almost all of the time among both early career workers (-10 points) and also among those later in their career (-9 points). The biggest difference occurs in the very negative views. For workers under 30, the biggest change was among those who only feel positive about their career 20-49% of the time (+9 in 2024). While those feeling mostly positive (51-79% of the time) shifted just two points.

Among those in the later stages of their career, there was a big increase in the leaning negative (+7) but also in the very negative (+6), while those in the leaning positive camp decreased by 4 points. 

Based on our data, the workers who are most likely to have stable positive feelings towards their careers are those between the ages of 30-49, who are likely in the middle stages of their careers. For these two age cohorts, the overall averages were more stable throughout late 2022 and 2023. Throughout this time, the movement was not parallel but could be categorized as moving toward the mean. In general workers, in their 30s ended at a higher level of positivity and moved slowly in a negative direction while those in their 40s moved in a more positive direction. During the first three quarters of 2023, workers between the ages of 30-39 were above the average positive score before they dropped below average in Q4 of 2023. During this same time, workers between the ages of 40-49 remained below that average.

This year has shown a different pattern with workers in that 30-39 age cohort moving in a positive direction, while those between the ages of 40-49 (and the average) are heading in the opposite direction. The movement for both groups has had less to do with the extremes and more with a shift in the middle. Since the beginning of this year, the average drop among those who feel positive about their careers most of the time dropped 6 points. Among both workers in their 30s and 40s, the drop was just two points. The movement was also less pronounced on the very negative end of the spectrum, with those in their 30s dropping one point in the concentration that feels negatively about their career most of the time, compared to a gain of one point among those in their 40s.

Among workers in their 30s, the lean negative sentiment also decreased by one point since January, while average movement seemingly towards the lean positive sentiment (+4). For workers in their 40s, the movement was mostly towards the lean negative view. Indeed, the concentration of those feeling more positive dropped by 10 points from January to May, while those who lean towards feeling negative increased by nine points over the same period. Additionally, the concentration of those feeling very negative increased by two points among those in their 40s.

Our March 2023 report highlighted the theory that having kids does not influence the overall percentage of positive and negative feelings. Almost halfway into the year, this theory continues to be proven right, as parents (86%) and non-parents (85%) hold very similar views on their careers. Given the overall drop in positivity among those over 40, the likelihood is that age is a bigger factor than whether or not a worker has kids in the house. 

Breaking the numbers down by industry, office workers have the highest concentration of very positive feelings towards their careers compared to those in manufacturing and the service industry. However, the overall concentration of positive views is not that different with office workers (84%), with those in the service industry (76%) and those in manufacturing (83%) all holding similar views.

On the other hand, we see that those in the service industry have the highest concentration of negative feelings, with 8% holding very negative views and 17% feeling negative about their careers 20-49% of the time. This comes as no real surprise as many restaurants have struggled to find employees to manage the workload. 

Meanwhile, area type has less of an effect on how workers feel about their careers, with those who live in urban areas of the country continuing to have the highest concentration of very happy workers (80-100) and those in rural areas remain the happiest overall at 82 percent feeling positive.

Regionally, however, some variations do occur., Workers living in the South and the West tend to be slightly happier on average (78%) compared to those who live in the Northeast and Midwest (77%); however, these differences are generally small. 

Economic numbers are pointing to a robust economy and workers are generally feeling good about their careers, which are both signs that things are trending upward; nonetheless, these two sets of numbers are not necessarily connected. It is easy to point to the overall numbers and say that career satisfaction is down; however, that view glosses over the differences based on career stage and what type of setting a person works in. Our economy is incredibly complex and it should not be surprising that workers also hold complex ideas about their place within the system and their future. External events, like the introduction of AI into the workforce, will continue to shape and mold worker opinions in the short and long term.