Employee Engagement Statistics 2026: Rates & Cost
Engagement is measured well and managed badly. The world’s engaged share fell for a second straight year, the losses run into the trillions, and the group sliding fastest is the one organizations count on to fix it: managers. Here are the employee engagement statistics worth knowing in 2026, each sourced inline with the year noted.
Global engagement fell for a second straight year
20% of employees worldwide were engaged at work in 2025, the lowest level since 2020 and down from a 2022 peak of 23% (Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026, on data collected through 2025).
64% of employees globally are not engaged, and 16% are actively disengaged (Gallup, 2025 data). In Gallup’s own shorthand, not-engaged employees are quietly quitting and actively disengaged employees are loudly quitting. Quiet quitting is the majority condition of the global workforce, not a fringe trend.
19% of workers worldwide were fully engaged in 2025, unchanged from 2024, according to ADP Research (2026), an independent instrument landing within a point of Gallup’s.
U.S. engagement runs above the world average and has not moved since 2024
32% of U.S. employees were engaged across 2025, against a global average of 20% (Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026).
31% of U.S. employees were engaged during the first half of 2026, unchanged from 2025, with 18% actively disengaged (Gallup, July 2026). The two readings come from different Gallup instruments, a global World Poll and a U.S. panel.
36% was the U.S. record, set in 2020. The fall to 31% equals roughly 8 million fewer engaged employees, with each percentage point representing about 1.6 million workers (Gallup, 2026).
What disengagement costs
$10 trillion in lost productivity, equal to 9% of global GDP, is Gallup’s estimate of what low engagement cost the world economy in 2025. That figure is global, not a U.S. number.
$2 trillion a year is the U.S. share: the annual cost of not-engaged and actively disengaged employees in lost workplace productivity (Gallup, 2026).
18% to 43% higher turnover is what low-engagement teams typically endure compared with highly engaged teams (Gallup). Replacing a single employee costs one-half to two times that employee’s annual salary, which Gallup calls conservative.
Engaged teams post measurably better numbers
In Gallup’s Q12 meta-analysis, top-quartile teams beat bottom-quartile teams by 23% on profitability and post 78% less absenteeism (median differences across companies).
21% less turnover in high-turnover organizations and 51% less turnover in low-turnover organizations separate the most engaged teams from the least (Gallup).
10% higher customer loyalty, 14% higher productivity and 32% fewer quality defects complete the picture (Gallup).
Managers explain most of the variance, and manager engagement is falling fastest
70% of the variance in team engagement is attributable to the manager alone (Gallup, 2015). Engagement is therefore a team-level outcome, not a company-level one.
22% of managers globally were engaged in 2025, down from 27% in 2024 and down nine points since 2022 (Gallup, 2026).
31% of U.S. managers were engaged in 2024, no better than the people they manage (Gallup, 2025). In best-practice organizations, 79% of managers were engaged in 2025, nearly quadruple the global average.
Clarity and recognition are the elements slipping fastest
46% of U.S. employees strongly agreed they know what is expected of them at work in 2024, down 10 points from 56% in March 2020 (Gallup). It recovered to 49% in the first half of 2026, still below the 2015 peak of 61% (Gallup, 2026).
39% strongly agreed that someone at work cares about them, down from 47% in March 2020, and only 30% said someone encourages their development, down from 36% (Gallup, 2024 data).
One in three U.S. workers strongly agree they received recognition or praise for good work in the past seven days, and employees who do not feel adequately recognized are twice as likely to say they will quit within the year (Gallup).
43% of U.S. employees are engaged where the employer has a clear plan for integrating AI, against 28% where there is no plan or employees are unaware of one (Gallup, 2026). Clarity, again, rather than access to tools.
Remote, hybrid and frontline workers engage at different rates
Exclusively remote and hybrid employees are more likely to be engaged and thriving than on-site employees in remote-capable jobs, while employees whose jobs cannot be done remotely report the lowest engagement and thriving of the four groups, as of May 2026 (Gallup, 2026).
Globally, the same ranking comes with numbers attached: 30% of exclusively remote employees are engaged, against 25% of hybrid employees, 24% of on-site remote-capable employees and 17% of on-site employees whose jobs are not remote-capable (Gallup State of the Global Workplace, 2026). Those four figures are global, not U.S.
52% of remote-capable U.S. employees now work hybrid, 26% work exclusively remote and 22% work on-site, a split that has held steady since 2022 (Gallup, 2026). Frontline workers, with no remote option at all, sit at the bottom of the table.
The busywork problem underneath the numbers
None of this describes a software problem, and no tool turns a disengaged team into an engaged one. What tools can touch is the share of the week that disappears into work nobody finds meaningful: inbox triage, scheduling back-and-forth, chasing status, retyping details between systems. That is the layer Carly works on, handling email, calendar and routine follow-up so the hours left over go to the work managers are trying to build clarity around.
FAQ
What percentage of employees are engaged at work? Globally, 20% were engaged in 2025, the lowest since 2020 (Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026). In the U.S. the figure is higher: 32% across 2025, and 31% in the first half of 2026.
How much does employee disengagement cost? Gallup estimates $10 trillion in lost productivity worldwide, about 9% of global GDP, for 2025. The U.S. share alone is roughly $2 trillion a year (Gallup, 2026).
How many employees are quiet quitting? 64% of employees globally are not engaged and a further 16% are actively disengaged (Gallup, 2025 data). Gallup describes the not-engaged group as quietly quitting.
What drives employee engagement most? The manager: 70% of the variance in team engagement traces to the manager alone (Gallup, 2015). Clarity of expectations is down 10 points from its 2020 high, and only one in three U.S. workers report recognition in a given week.
Related: Productivity Statistics 2026 · Remote Work Statistics 2026 · Workplace Automation Statistics 2026 · AI in the Workplace Statistics 2026
Ready to automate your busywork?
Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.
See what people say
"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.
On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."
