Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 report. That marks the first time engagement has declined for two consecutive years since Gallup began tracking global engagement in 2009. Currently, 64% of the world's employees sit in the "not engaged," or quietly quitting, category.
What Does Quiet Quitting Actually Mean in Gallup's Data?
Quiet quitting is not a slang term Gallup borrowed from social media. It is the label Gallup applies to its "not engaged" category, one of three groups its Q12 survey sorts every employee into: engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged. Gallup describes not engaged workers plainly: they "are quietly quitting. They are psychologically unattached to their work and company." Because their engagement needs are not being met, these employees show up, do the minimum, and withhold the discretionary effort that actually moves a business forward.
Actively disengaged workers are a different, smaller, and more corrosive group. Gallup calls them "loudly quitting" employees who are resentful their needs are not being met and act that resentment out in ways that can undermine coworkers' progress every day.
How Much Has Engagement Declined, and Since When?
The slide has been building for three years. Global engagement reached a record 23% in 2022, held there in 2023, dropped to 21% in 2024, and fell again to 20% in 2025. No region of the world posted an increase last year, and the decline has been broad rather than concentrated in one region.
| Year | Global engagement | Manager engagement |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 (record high) | 23% | 31% |
| 2023 | 23% | 30% |
| 2024 | 21% | 27% |
| 2025 | 20% | 22% |
Because each percentage point of global engagement represents roughly 21 million workers, the three-point slide since 2022 has moved tens of millions of people into the checked-out column, not a rounding error on a survey chart.
Here is how the 2025 workforce breaks down across Gallup's three categories:
Why Are Managers the Real Story Behind the Decline?
The headline number hides where the damage is concentrated. Manager engagement has fallen from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025, a nine-point slide, with the steepest single-year drop, from 27% to 22%, landing between 2024 and 2025. Individual contributor engagement, by contrast, has held far steadier over the same period, moving only from 20% in 2022 to 19% in 2025.
That gap matters. According to Gallup's earlier research (2015), managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement. When the layer of the organization responsible for most of a team's engagement disengages itself, the effect does not stay contained to that one manager's morale score. It cascades to every employee reporting to them. Executives often roll out new engagement initiatives aimed at frontline staff while overlooking the managers standing between strategy and execution, which is a large part of why quiet quitting keeps climbing.
Which Regions and Countries Look Best and Worst?
Engagement varies sharply by geography. The U.S. and Canada region posted the highest engagement rate in the world in 2025 at 31%, but 17% of employees in the region are actively disengaged and 52% are not engaged, meaning more than half sit in the quiet quitting middle. Europe remains the least engaged region on the planet, with only 12% of employees engaged in 2025, a gap that matters enormously for any organization benchmarking itself against the wrong regional baseline.
What Does Disengagement Cost Employers?
Gallup puts the price tag for low engagement at roughly $10 trillion in lost productivity for 2025, equal to about 9% of global GDP. In the prior year alone, the two-point drop in engagement cost the world economy an estimated $438 billion. Gallup has also modeled the upside: if every employee worldwide were fully engaged, the global economy could add an estimated $9.6 trillion in additional output, equal to about 9% of global GDP (per Gallup's 2025 report). This is a reminder that engagement is a productivity lever, not just a morale metric.
How Can Organizations Start Reversing Quiet Quitting?
- Audit manager workload before launching another employee survey. If managers are stretched across too many reports or squeezed between shifting executive priorities, no amount of employee-facing programming will move the needle.
- Give managers real skills training, not just a policy deck. Coaching conversations, recognition habits, and expectation-setting are learnable behaviors, and Gallup's data ties manager quality directly to team-level engagement.
- Watch the under-35 and female manager cohorts specifically. In 2024, engagement fell by five points among managers under 35 and by seven points among female managers, the steepest declines of any group, and losing them removes future senior leaders from the pipeline.
- Benchmark against your own region, not the global average. A U.S. and Canada team at 25% engagement is underperforming its regional peers, while a European team at the same score may be near the top of its region.
FAQ
How many employees are quietly quitting in 2025, according to Gallup?
Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace report puts 64% of the world's employees in the not engaged, or quiet quitting, category in 2025, alongside 20% engaged and 16% actively disengaged.
Is quiet quitting getting worse or better?
It is getting worse. Global engagement declined for a second consecutive year through 2025, the first such back-to-back decline since Gallup began tracking global engagement in 2009, dropping from a 23% peak in 2022 to 20% in 2025.
Why do managers matter so much to engagement scores?
According to Gallup's earlier research (2015), managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement. Yet manager engagement itself has fallen nine points since 2022, from 31% to 22%, with the sharpest single-year drop between 2024 and 2025.
What does disengagement cost a typical employer?
Gallup estimates low engagement cost the global economy roughly $10 trillion in lost productivity in 2025, about 9% of global GDP. A year earlier, the two-point drop in 2024 alone cost an estimated $438 billion.
Quiet quitting is not a workforce mood swing you wait out. It is a measurable, costly pattern tied to manager health, and it responds to specific interventions. If your engagement data looks like Gallup's global averages, a structured conversation with our team can help you find where the leak actually starts. Book a free consultation
Disclaimer: This article summarizes findings from Gallup's State of the Global Workplace reports and related secondary coverage for general informational purposes. It is not a substitute for a tailored organizational diagnostic. Figures reflect the most recent published Gallup data available at the time of writing and may be revised in future reports.
Sources (captured September 18, 2026):
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 (2025 data)
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026: Global Data Summary
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026: Regional Data
- Gallup, "Global Employee Engagement Continues Decline" (April 7, 2026)
- Gallup, "Global Engagement Falls for the Second Time Since 2009" (April 2025, 2024 data)
- Gallup Business Journal, "Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement" (2015)