While the term "quiet quitting" is relatively new, it fits at least half of the U.S. workforce, Gallup finds.
Half of the U.S. workforce is "not engaged" at work, defined by Gallup as doing the minimum required and psychologically detaching from the job. Everyone else is either engaged (32 percent) or actively disengaged (18 percent). Actively disengaged employees can be thought of as "loud quitters," in that they spread their dissatisfaction.
"The trend toward quiet quitting — the idea spreading virally on social media that millions of people are not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description — could get worse," Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace and wellbeing for Gallup, wrote. "This is a problem because most jobs today require some level of extra effort to collaborate with coworkers and meet customer needs."
The ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is now 1.8 to 1, the lowest in almost a decade. The drop in engagement began in the second half of 2021, according to Gallup. In the second quarter of 2022, the proportion of engaged workers stayed steady at 32 percent while the proportion of actively disengaged workers increased to 18 percent.
Gallup's findings are based on a random sample of 15,091 full- and part-time U.S. employees aged 18 and over, surveyed in June 2022.
Find the analysis in full here.