Yup, it’s bad out there

A new mid-year analysis from Glassdoor paints an unfortunately grim picture of the workplace

IT’S BEEN A heck of year and it’s only July. You’re probably feeling some version of this sentiment: the world of work and careers has been moving what feels like especially quickly this year; among the words you might choose to describe 2026 are ‘stressful, challenging and intense.’

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Job search and career platform Glassdoor chose another one in their mid-year check-in: ‘grim.’

“The first half of 2026 paints an unfortunately grim picture of the workplace,” Glassdoor wrote in the report, in which the employer review platform checks up on its 2026 predictions. Looking at labour force data and the general state of vibes, it basically summarized that its negative predictions were spot-on, the hopeful predictions haven’t panned out and its worried guesses have been worse than expected.

For instance, it predicted that employees and leadership would grow further apart; that one got a ‘spot-on.’ It predicted that forever layoffs would dominate the jobs cycle; that one has been true. But Glassdoor also predicted that AI would not have much of an impact on workers (yet), and for that it graded the prediction ‘worse than expected.’

On just about every point, Glassdoor reports the mood among the workforce is more sour, the outlook less hopeful and the anxiety more ever-present than they predicted at the start of the year.

One of the clearest data points Glassdoor saw was the deterioration of employee satisfaction and their trust in senior leadership. “Mentions of misalignment, disconnect and distrust are up significantly in 2026, compared to 2025,” it wrote in the review. “Overall, these terms point to a chasm where employees feel like they can’t trust their leaders to keep their best interests in mind.”

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Hovering in the background, of course, is layoffs — something Glassdoor says are now a common feature of the current job market. “Layoffs are still top of mind for workers, and anxiety about layoffs and job security are still skyrocketing,” the report stated. “Layoffs have a persistent negative effect on culture, lasting even multiple years after the initial layoff, suggesting that the anxiety from this trickle of forever layoffs is not going to disappear anytime soon.”

So, was there any good news? Well, not really — at least not in Glassdoor’s opinion. The report is clear from the beginning that it’s been a grim start to the year. But hey, we can always finish strong — so here’s hoping the back half of the year brings better news. Kieran Delamont