The Majority of U.S. Workers are Optimistic About Their Employer's Future | Methodology

Overview:

PayScale examined how optimistic and pessimistic U.S. workers feel about their current employer's future. We collected data from 425,219 workers between 6/15/2014 and 6/15/2016 to create this report.

Workers were asked how much they agree with the following statement:

"I am confident my employer has a bright future."

Response choices are:

1. 1 - Strongly Disagree
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5 - Strongly Agree

PayScale analyzes differences in these response by:

1. Overall
2. Job Categories (ONET 30)
3. Industry (NAICS 50)
4. State

Definitions:

% "Meh": This is the percentage of respondents that gave the lowest rating (3 - Neither Agree/Disagree) when prompted: "I am confident my employer has a bright future."

% Optimistic: This is the percentage of respondents that gave a high rating (4 - Agree) when prompted: "I am confident my employer has a bright future."

% Strongly Optimistic: This is the percentage of respondents that gave the highest rating (5 - Strongly Agree) when prompted: "I am confident my employer has a bright future."

Industry: This is the industry of the respondent as classified in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). NAICS is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy (https://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/).

Job Category (ONET 30): The Detailed SOC Occupation is the fourth highest level of the O*NET-SOC Taxonomy (https://www.onetcenter.org/taxonomy.html) that encompasses the respondents occupation. All jobs are classified into one of the 840 Detailed SOC Occupations.
State: This is the U.S. state in which the respondent works.

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