Employee confidence around the job market, job security, pay raises and future business outlook is strong, according to Glassdoor’s Q1 2016 US Employment Confidence Survey.

"In 2009, our country faced its worst recession in years and uncertainty made employment confidence weak,” said Rusty Rueff, Glassdoor career and workplace expert. “Today, employee confidence around the job market, job security and likelihood of a pay raise is among the highest it’s been in the past seven years. We’ll keep an eye on employee confidence around employers’ future business outlook as recent market uncertainty could be impacting employee optimism related to company performance.”

The Glassdoor Employment Confidence Survey monitors four key indicators of employee confidence:

Job market confidence near peak level: More than half, 53%, of American employees (including those self-employed) believe if they lost their job they would be able to find a new job matched to their experience and current compensation levels in the next six months. This reveals the second-highest confidence in the US. job market since Glassdoor began its survey in 2009, up 14 percentage points from 39% in the first quarter 2009. Job market confidence is down one percentage point from 54% in the third quarter of 2015.

• Pay raises: Nearly half, 46%, of US employees expect a pay raise or cost-of-living increase in the next 12 months, which is up 10 percentage points from 36% in the first quarter 2009.  Pay raise confidence is down four percentage points from 50% in the third quarter 2015.
• Job security: US employees’ concerns about being laid off have reached a new low since the fourth quarter of 2014 (13%). Today, 14% of employees report they are concerned they could be laid off in the next six months, compared with its peak of 26% in the first quarter 2009. Layoff concerns is down one percentage point from 15% the third quarter of 2015.
• Business outlook: Nearly half of employees, 42%, believe their company’s future business outlook will improve in the next six months. When asked if they expected their companies’ outlooks to get better, worse or stay the same in the next six months, employees reported a record high confidence of 51% in the second quarter of 2015 that their business outlook will improve. This optimism declined to 48% in the third quarter of 2015 and 42% in the first quarter of 2016, the start of an election year. Fifty percent believe their company’s business outlook will stay the same, up four percentage points from 46% in the third quarter 2015, while 7% believe it will get worse, up one percentage point from 6% in the third quarter of 2015.

The survey conducted online by Harris Poll in March among 2,015 American adults.