U.S. employee engagement fell to 29% in the third quarter, Gallup’s lowest reading since 2011, as its survey recorded weaker views of job expectations and whether someone at work cared about employees.
Gallup defines engagement as workers’ involvement and enthusiasm in their jobs and workplaces. The third-quarter reading was two percentage points below the second quarter; the rate had been 31% through the first half of 2026 after reaching 36% in 2020. Gallup estimates the latest decline represents about 3.2 million fewer engaged workers, using its estimate that each percentage point corresponds to about 1.6 million U.S. employees.
Gallup classified 53% of employees as not engaged and 18% as actively disengaged. The actively disengaged share rose from 17% in the second quarter. Gallup groups employees as engaged, not engaged or actively disengaged.
The decline was especially pronounced among employees working remotely. Engagement for exclusively remote workers fell from 37% in the second quarter to 32% in the third, while the hybrid rate dropped from 34% to 32%. Gallup said the declines among remote-capable, hybrid and exclusively remote employees exceeded the survey’s margin of error.
Workplace ratings also weakened. The share of employees who strongly agreed that they knew what was expected of them dropped to 46% in the third quarter from 49% in the first half of 2026. The share who strongly agreed that a supervisor or someone at work cared about them fell to 37% from 40%.
Gallup found that AI-integrated organizations had a narrower engagement advantage among exclusively remote and hybrid employees. For exclusively remote workers, the gap against employees at organizations Gallup classified as not AI-integrated or whose employees did not know whether AI was integrated narrowed from five points in the second quarter to two in the third. Among hybrid workers, it narrowed from eight points to three.
Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist for Workplace, wrote, “The pattern suggests that AI adoption may be outpacing the communication and managerial support needed to make it effective.” Gallup’s analysis does not establish that AI caused the overall engagement decline.
A separate measure from The Conference Board showed U.S. job satisfaction at 68.9% in 2026, up from 68.3% in 2025 and the highest in its 39-year series. The Conference Board said satisfaction gains were concentrated among higher-income workers, men and those confident about AI’s career effects; women, lower-income workers and people lagging in AI adoption were more likely to report lower satisfaction. Job satisfaction measures a different aspect of work from Gallup’s engagement categories.
