Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Employee Confidence Index (ECI) from Randstad, the large U.S. staffing firm, decreased slightly from 62.3 points in the first quarter of 2015 to 61.9 (-0.4) in the second quarter.
- Despite that drop, survey findings indicate employee confidence remains exceptionally high, with 2015 marking the first year the U.S. ECI has reached 60.0 points or higher since the survey's inception in 2004.
- Also, nearly one-third (32%) of the 2,000 workers surveyed by Randstad believe more jobs are available and more than half (53%) indicate they are confident in their ability to find a new job.
Dive Insight:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added 223,000 new jobs in June, marking it the third consecutive month of solid gains after a temporary slowdown in March. The unemployment rate also declined to 5.3 percent, the lowest rate since April 2008.
However, some economists remain wary as the waning unemployment rate has been largely attributed to a reduction of more than 400,000 workers from the U.S. labor force.
"While the question of whether the U.S. economy is 'fully healed' remains a topic of debate among many economists, a number of positive indicators suggest we will continue to see a positive trend," said Jim Link, Chief HR Officer, Randstad North America. "More than 200,000 jobs have been added in 13 of the last 15 months, and our survey findings indicate employee confidence remains high."
