Quiet quitting is a global phenomenon that could cost the economy $8.8 trillion, pollster says

• Gallup says "quiet quitting," in which workers do the bare minimum, is a global phenomenon.
• The firm surveyed over 120,000 people and concluded 59% weren't fully engaged with their jobs.

The buzzword "quiet quitting" may have emerged in the US, but the phenomenon it describes — employees doing the bare minimum at work — appears to be global, with the world's workers taking a step back amid elevated stress levels.

Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace report surveyed 122,416 employed respondents ages 15 and over in more than 160 countries from 2022 to 2023 and concluded that 59% of the workers worldwide were "quiet quitting."

The report used respondents' answers to a series of 12 questions to split those surveyed into three categories at work: engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged. Anyone it considered to be "not engaged" was said to be quiet quitting.

Quiet quitting refers to employees who fulfill their job requirements but do nothing more — often influenced by poor wages, lack of satisfaction, or, for some, the inability to quit and find a better job.

Gallup's report estimated that such low engagement at work was costing the global economy $8.8 trillion, or 9% of global gross domestic product.

As well as low engagement, Gallup's survey found that workplace stress levels remained at a record high going back to 2021, with 44% of respondents saying they'd experienced stress for a "lot of the day" on the previous day at work.

Gallup found that the stress levels reported by workers correlated much more with levels of engagement and involvement at work than they did with their work location (remote, on-site, or hybrid).

"In other words, what people experience in their everyday work — their feelings of involvement and enthusiasm — matters more in reducing stress than where they are sitting," the report said.

Though the job market has become increasingly competitive, over half of employed workers in Gallup's survey said they were looking for a new job. Gallup said it'd conducted a recent analysis that found workers who felt engaged in their work would need to be offered a 31% pay increase on average to switch jobs, while disengaged employees needed only a 22% pay rise to leave.

Gallup said that when it asked about one thing workers would change to improve their workplace, 85% of responses from those classed as quiet quitters involved a shift in at least one area: culture, pay, or well-being.

Gallup didn't immediately respond to a request for further comment about the findings.

A recent Deloitte report found that young professionals were especially stressed out at work, with nearly half of Gen Zers saying they felt anxious at work most of the time.

Deloitte's report found that Gen Zers weren't feeling great about work with inflation continuing to eat into their paychecks. Many are feeling scared about not reaching financial and personal goals in the future, including starting a family or buying a house.