5 Job Satisfaction Statistics You Need to Know (2024 Data)

While businesses are doing more than ever to cope with the effects of a smaller workforce, it seems that the number of workers isn’t the only thing that’s shrinking. Overall eNPS scores, a metric that measures employee job satisfaction, have dropped 9% since January 2023. Clearly, employee morale has gotten worse across the board.

Curious about the factors that can impact employee satisfaction in 2024? Learn about the trends affecting modern companies and what you can do to make a difference in your organization!

How Does eNPS Work?

The Employee Net Promoter System^® (eNPS)* is a one-question survey to gauge employee satisfaction. First, an organization sends an eNPS survey to its employees, asking how likely they are to recommend the company as a place to work.

The employees then answer the question on a scale of one to 10 and are identified as promoters, neutrals, and detractors based on their responses..

Promoters: 9 or 10; they’re excited about their workplace.
Neutrals: 7 and 8; they may or may not recommend the company as a place to work.
Detractors: 6 and below; they’re seriously dissatisfied with their workplace and won’t recommend it to others.

The final score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, giving you a score between -100 and 100. The higher the score, the more promoters your organization has and the more satisfied your employees are.

*Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

Why Do eNPS Scores Matter?

eNPS scores can offer helpful insights into the experience of your employees within your organization and across the larger job market.

The fact that eNPS scores have dropped significantly indicates that employees are less engaged in their work than in recent years. According to Gallup’s analysis, engaged employees bring the following effects:

An 81% drop in chronic employee absenteeism
A 64% drop in workplace safety accidents
An 18% decrease in turnover for organizations where it’s typically high

Higher employee engagement also increases customer loyalty and engagement and can increase business profitability by as much as 23%. Clearly, employee job satisfaction matters a lot when it comes to productivity and business performance.

What Employers Need to Know (and Do) About Job Satisfaction in 2024

Just knowing that eNPS scores, morale, and engagement have dropped doesn’t do much for HR professionals—it’s important to think about how to change this decline in employee happiness.

Fortunately, insights from our research reveal what employers need to take note of and what actions they can take to right the ship.

eNPS Volatility Has Only Moved 20 Percentage Points

In 2020, eNPS scores moved by as much as 118 percentage points throughout the year as employee satisfaction changed month to month. In 2023, that volatility dropped to just 20 percentage points. Employee happiness did not vary much month over month.

These days, dissatisfaction seems to be making a permanent place in the workforce. To avoid negative consequences, employers need to take the time to learn why their employees are unhappy and what they can do to move the needle on satisfaction and engagement.

New Hire Happiness Has Experienced an All-Time Low

Employees with less than three years of experience at a company have an average eNPS score of 36, an 11% drop from Q2 2022’s low of 41. Meanwhile, companies where the average employee has a tenure longer than three years are doing much better, experiencing less than half of that drop within the same time frame.

This is the perfect opportunity to improve your employee onboarding experience. With over 95% of employees expecting clear guidelines to understand their mission and values—and 93% hoping to shadow a colleague at work—a good onboarding program can help raise new employee impressions and contribute to satisfaction.

Companies with Fewer than 25 Employees Have 32% Higher eNPS Scores than Those with 150 or More

Companies with fewer than 25 employees have experienced a 4% increase in eNPS scores since Q2 of 2022. Meanwhile, companies with more than 150 employees have experienced a 14% drop. That number jumps to 17% for companies with 300 or more employees.

While company growth is usually a good thing, it also brings a lot of challenges, one of which is communication. In Q4 2023, employees cited regular feedback and organizational transparency as big issues, and a survey of 1,500 full-time office employees revealed that 60% of candidates are attracted to companies that are honest.

Similarly, 60% of employees said that companies can ease layoff fears by sharing exactly what they’re doing to turn things around. And speaking of layoffs, 56% of employees want employers to be transparent about which roles were let go. These statistics show that the more honest employers become, the more satisfied their employees will likely be.

Construction Still Has the Highest Scores, but the Nonprofit and Education Sectors are Looking Up

The construction industry continually enjoys high eNPS scores—the average score is 47. It has experienced only a 2% drop since Q2 of 2022, the smallest of just about any industry. While volatility scores indicate that some of these feelings are seasonal, many attribute the scores to the high availability of work and rising wages, which have increased by as much as 81% and can be as high as $29 per hour.

Job satisfaction increased by 4% in the nonprofit sector and 5% in the education sector between September 2022 and September 2023. Because both of these industries are highly mission-driven, many believe the increase is due to employees feeling connected to the overall goals of the organization. Deriving purpose and meaning from work is a key driver of employee engagement.

The Tech and Food and Beverage Industries Continue to Experience the Steepest Declines

From September 2022 to September 2023, the tech sector experienced a 10% drop in eNPS scores. The restaurant, food, and beverage industry had a 21% drop in the same time period. What do these two sectors have in common? Employees tend to experience a lot of uncertainty.

For food industry workers, the uncertainty lies in unstable scheduling, inconsistent hours, slowing consumer spending, and the inability to make ends meet as a result. Those in the tech sector are worried about layoffs; 22% of them fear being replaced by technology.

While individual employers can’t do much about the overall economy or stop the impacts of emerging technology, they can increase communication with employees about the organization’s plans and strategies and be more accommodating of workers’ needs.

Employee Job Satisfaction Is Achievable

Though job satisfaction has hit an all-time low, employers need to know they’re not helpless. There are strategies they can use to improve their employees’ happiness.

Listening closely to what your workers want, communicating openly, and ensuring that your employees know they’re valued and supported can go a long way in helping you build a workplace that employees love—and love recommending to others.